


black mesa bullshit

by localdisasterisk



Category: Half Life VR But The AI Is Self-Aware
Genre: (also in case you're wondering: josh does Fully think gordon and benrey are together), (the gun arm gets talked about), AND MAYBE EATING HIS SHAMPOO??? DAD PLEASE KICK HIM OUT OF THE APARTMENT ALREADY—, Airports, Amputation, Bickering, Black Mesa Sweet Voice, Board Games, Cake, Comedy, Computer Programming, Conspiracy Theories, Constructed Reality, Couch Cuddles, Crack Treated Seriously, Crying, Drinking & Talking, Drunkenness, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Epilogue, Eventual Happy Ending, Existential Crisis, Exposition, Family Dynamics, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Heart-to-Heart, Hugs, I don't wanna tag it as attempted suicide bc I'm Pretty Sure This Isn't That, Introspection, Josh Gets Answers: A Tragedy In Three Acts, Minor Original Character(s), Minor Violence, One Big Happy Family, Other, Realization, Separation Anxiety, Soda!, Team as Family, Time Skips, because the horrid little friend keeps TOUCHING HIS SHIT, benrey is trying to reinvent the homestuck quadrants, fanon-typical respawning, gordon is happy to have his horrid little friend back, joshua wishes his dad would stop being happy to have his horrid little friend back, more philosophical talks w coomer!!, there's a bit where benrey almost jumps off a balcony but like., this is the longest thing I have ever written I hate this fandom /hj
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:14:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 30,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27001039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/localdisasterisk/pseuds/localdisasterisk
Summary: Feetman's gonna be so fucking mad. Benrey can't wait to see the look on his face when he opens the door. Oh, shit, there are the footsteps, hell yeah, time to get punched in the face. "yooooo," Benrey drawls, looking– farther up than he needed to. Damn, HEV suit had hella heels. Like, platform shit, put a fucking goldfish in those badboys, Feetman is tiny withou–wait.This.Is not Feetman.Feetman didn't have a lot of gray in his longass hair, but this rando has none in his fucking mullet, and also, no glasses. His eyes are brown and green, respectively, and he doesn't look as tired as Feetman did. Hedoeslook confused and nonplussed to see Benrey standing there, but that doesn't give way to recognition and then fury, so what fucking gives? Huh? Fuck new skins, all Benrey's homies hate new skins.(Or, it's been twenty years since the Black Mesa incident, and Benrey has just respawned, ready to bicker with Gordon again. Gordon, after two decades of therapy and a good deal less stress, is just happy to have the asshole back. Joshua, though? Joshua's going to drag this fucker out to a Denny's parking lot if it's the last thing he does.)
Relationships: Benrey & Joshua Freeman, Benrey/Gordon Freeman, Gordon Freeman & Joshua Freeman, Joshua Freeman & The Science Team
Comments: 386
Kudos: 740





	1. load from:

**Author's Note:**

> alt title: _What I Did This Winter Break: Why I Cannot Be Blamed for Unironically Saying "pog" in the Middle of a Serious Class Discussion,_ by Joshua Freeman
> 
> uh. hi. so, this is. a whole thing. I haven't finished the fic yet but, as of writing this note, it is at a little over 11k words? um, don't know! how that happened!! this was originally based off of a 4-panel comic but then I introduced josh because I was tired of writing benrey pov and don't like writing gordon pov but that didn't really leave me anyone?? except maybe tommy but I am afraid of screwing up tommy's voice (bc I love him so much and don't wanna do him dirty) so: josh it was!
> 
> except I uh. can't really write kids either? so I aged him up, and then I realized that, _hey, half-life 2 takes place after a 20 year timeskip! benrey could just have taken a really long time to respawn after getting fucked up so thoroughly!_ but then THAT made me think about if this was still technically in-game and it _couldn't_ be because that wouldn't make sense, unless I [plot shit] [worldbuilding] [lore] [more plot shit] and then. 
> 
> i had over 11k words. and growing.
> 
> so!  
> fuck me, I guess!
> 
> none of this is really applicable to the prompt but at this point I'm not going to just throw it out, (good ol' sunk-cost fallacy) so! you're getting this bullshit! first person to figure out what comic it was originally based on will get a drabble from me, story of their choosing. (anything longer than a drabble and I _will_ fuck it up.)

Joshua Freeman knows what happened at Black Mesa. Or– he knows a lot of it? Dad didn’t tell him all of it, getting details out of Tommy was and _is_ like making a wish with a genie, all specifics and back-tracking and looping around to get to the point, and even Dr. Coomer’s lecturing didn’t fill in enough of the gaps for him to get the whole, terrible story. But he got… enough. Enough to know that the whole story is terrible. Enough to know that it’s been twenty years, and Dad still sleeps with a nightlight because he can’t stand the dark. Enough to know that if someone grabs his hand or his arm too tightly, he has a panic attack. Enough to know that, yes, humans can get separation anxiety just like puppies do, and even though Josh can’t even _remember_ waiting at that daycare until someone thought to call his dad and then just kept calling and _calling_ and—

okay. Josh remembers it a little bit.

But Josh knows what happened at Black Mesa. He knows it took a lot of therapy for his family to get back to being okay. He knows he doesn’t _want_ to know all of it.

“yoooooo,” says the person in the doorway. 

Josh blinks. He looks at his phone, with the little portrait of his Uber Driver, Matt, and then looks back up at the person in the thick helmet and thicker vest and cop boots. They don’t look like a Matt, he’s gotta say. Still, it’s rude to judge a book by its cover or whatever, so he switches over to the TTS app and asks, “Matt?”

The person’s blank face doesn’t change. “where’s feetman?” Alright. Yeah, this isn’t his Uber Driver, and they don’t have dinner. Josh is going to have to wait for Matt to show up before he can lure Dad out of his office with the smell of cajun food. Which is a little wild, honestly– usually, stuff always shows up at exactly the right times to get Dad to take care of himself. (What can Josh say? He’s a valued customer after years of long-distance coffee orders for the most caffeine he’s legally allowed to acquire.)

Josh keeps his eyes on them as he types, “Where’s my jellybeans, you fuckhead?” A pause. He takes his eyes off them to squint incredulously at his phone. _“Jambalaya,”_ he corrects. Apparently he doesn’t know his phone keyboard as well as he thought, which is a terrible thing to find out now.

The person in the doorway asks, “the fuck’s that box, bro?” 

“Do you mean my phone?”

“...why’s it so fucking small? not the first time i’ve said that haaaa.” Josh raises his eyebrows and then shuts the door in their face. Cool. No thanks. Dad’s pretty much ingrained it into him not to talk to cops, which is more than enough reason to shut the door, not to mention the added dick jokes. Absolutely fucking not, thank you.

There’s another knock about fifteen minutes later, and Josh is pausing the new She-Ra reboot for the second time tonight so he can get the door for what had _better_ be his fucking jambalaya, but Dad has finally noticed that it’s evening and he’s come out of his study. “I got it, Josh.”

“Thank you!” Josh signs. And then, just before pressing play, “Also, there was a weird cop outside earlier, maybe—” ah, Dad’s not looking at him, oh well. Guess if the cop’s still there, Josh’ll find out when the door slams. His phone pings and he checks it– oh, a text from Uber!

It starts with, “yeah man, sorry…”

Mother. 

_Fucker._

Josh is so hungry he’s about to pull a 127 hours. (Yes, there is food in the fridge, but it’s not _good_ food, and it’s definitely not the chicken-and-shrimp jambalaya from the cajun place that Dad only gets occasionally, so fuck all that noise. Also, he’s kinda wondered if you could get prions from eating your _own_ uncooked flesh. 

…look, he and Darnold have had some interesting culinary discussions about potions and the human body, okay? Cannibalism is bound to come up eventually in any good family dinner discussion, no matter how weirdly Dad looks at everyone taking part in the conversation. At least it wasn’t politics. 

That was saved for breakfast table discussions that always ended up turning into repeating “ACAB” at each other.)

There’s the loud sound of lips being smacked. “yo,” says the cop again. “you uhhh miss me? feetman?”

Josh furrows his eyebrows and does not press play, setting the remote down on the couch next to him. He has never seen this fucking weirdo before in his life. Who the hell is this, acting like they know his dad? His dad just kinda stares at them for a moment before laughing. Not a little laugh either, like he does when one of Josh’s professors recognise him (always weird) but a big, like, _joyful_ laugh that comes from his chest. And then he grabs the– okay, probably not a cop, actually, even with the weird vest and the boots and the blue, but maybe like. Josh doesn’t fucking know, a security officer? Parole dickhead? _Mall cop?_ God, if Dad is friends with a mall cop, Josh is going to make him listen to the TTS voice read the Paul Blart 2 script for the rest of winter break — weird stranger in a massive hug. “Took you long enough to come back, you son of a bitch!”

Josh can get a pretty good view of the person’s face over his dad’s shoulder, and they look just about as confused and weirded out as Josh feels. They make eye contact. _“Fucking what?”_ Josh mouths at them. _“Who the hell are you?”_

The person starts singing. Colour comes out of their mouth. 

“FUCKING _WHAT,”_ Josh signs furiously, before rescuing his phone from the couch cushions and making the TTS read, “Daddy what in the shit is going on here? If you don’t tell me what’s going on, I’m going to start counting terabytes!”

Dad pulls back and grins at him, but then he gets distracted by the orbs in the air. They look like the blobby shit inside lava lamps, kinda, but in shades of dark yellow and pink. Honestly, kinda looks like Sunkist’s singing, but Tommy didn’t make this dude. And they’re not the perfect _anything,_ so there’s no way it’s the same. “Don’t know what to think?” Dad asks the stranger, who somehow, despite their face not changing, looks bewildered and uncomfortable. Good! That makes fucking two of them! “Benry, this is my son, Joshua. You know, the one you said looked a bit shit?”

Benry (???) blinks. “oh yeah, lol.” Josh cringes. The only thing worse than hearing someone– he can’t get a read on their age and that’s only half because he doesn’t want to fucking look at them, but he thinks they’re oldish, which makes this worse because they’re not doing it ironically– say “lol” out loud with their mouth is hearing Bubby try and keep up with modern slang. “shit baby grew up. s’like. old now.”

Josh starts to sign, “What?” Unfortunately, he’s so fucking confused by this point that it just turns into incessant, frustrated flailing.

“Josh, this is Benry. He uh– he was part of Black Mesa.”

Ah. So that’s just fucking normal, then. “Gotcha, whatever.” Coomer and Bubby and Sunkist came from Black Mesa, too, and like. Yeah. Shit checks out. Before he can finally, _finally,_ get back to She-Ra, he pauses just long enough to ask, “He’s not a fucking cop, right?”

“God, no.”

“Cool.” Switching to the TTS voice, “Where’s my cajun food, you Black Mesa motherfucker?”

“huh? oh, i uhhh, couldn’t let it through. the guy didn’t have his passport. gotta have ID.”

Josh is about to groan and text Matt back to explain the weirdo outside the door and say that he’ll take that delivery now, sorry ‘bout the bullshit— when he freezes solid; ice water running down his back. “You,” he signs. _“You._ Bitch! _You’re_ why I didn’t—” to Dad— _“this_ is why I got a passport for my eighth birthday instead of a bike? This asshat?” Benry (maybe Benrey? No, that’s some fucking Reylo bullshit, it’s gotta be Benry) wrinkles his nose a little when Josh signs that, but frankly, fuck him, he cheated Josh out of a bike.

Dad laughs again, bringing a hand up to rub at the back of his neck. “Sorry, Josh. Just– y’know, I was a lot more worried about him coming back immediately after I killed him, so I thought passports’d be… I dunno, good to have? And I did get you that bike!”

“Yeah, you did get me the bike,” Josh agrees mulishly. He could have learned how to ride a bike earlier, but no. Black Mesa Bullshit strikes again.

Benry, who perked right up when Dad mentioned passports (Josh can’t fucking believe this, but he can’t be mad about it because at least he isn’t reciting something about chairs from ‘Wikipedia,’ whatever the hell that is. Apparently, it used to be a thing, and then they killed it. Josh is glad they killed it, honestly, because that probably stops Coomer from reading off more essays than he already does) closes the door behind him, his face changing from the blank slate for the first time in favor of a grin. It reminds him of when Coomer is warning him not to do something, but… different. Scarier. “oh yo baby feetman’s got a pass port? ID, please? ID for benry?” Dad’s prosthetic hand lands on Benry’s shoulder and squeezes. There’s a terrible _crunch_ and dark red blood oozes out through the thin blue dress shirt between the white silicone fingers. Benry frowns, turning back to Dad. “nah, man! c’mon… ow.”

Josh can hear the frowny emoticon. He can’t see a single real emotion on Benry’s face, but their voice is… shockingly expressive. Less shockingly, he seems only mildly put out by what must be a broken shoulder. Dad, just as friendly as before, squeezes even harder. There are more squelching snaps of flesh yielding and bone snapping. 

(Josh has only been scared of his dad once, when dad’s ex was taking him by the old apartment to collect all of his stuff. After a month, dad’s ex was convinced that Dad wasn’t coming back. So dad’s ex was in the bedroom, picking up stuffed animals and books to bring over to his house, and Josh was watching Spongebob in the living room when Dad slammed through the door, bloody and big-eyed and dressed in blocky orange armor that groaned when he moved and made the loudest crash Josh had ever heard when he stumbled into the wall. Josh didn’t recognize him, and he screamed for five minutes straight, and then cried for three hours afterward. Right now, Josh knows that this is his dad, and he’s not going to start screaming, but– but he is a little scared. He didn’t know Dad’s hand had that much strength in it.)

Dad breaks out the Concerned Professor Voice when he asks, “Pull the shit with my son that you pulled with me? Benry? And I kill you again.” He’s saying it like he’s checking in that Josh understands that breaking Darnold’s Important Computer to make into robots was bad and that he shouldn’t do it again. It is… a little weird to think about the comparison of Black Mesa Bullshit (on a scale of 1-10, ten being the most apocalyptic shit imaginable, it always sounds like a forty) to breaking Darnold’s computer (maybe an oh-point-two-five on that scale. _Maybe.)_ “Do you understand– d-do you get what I’m saying?” Benry looks over at Josh. Just stares, hard, his eyes orange under the shadow of his helmet and boring into him even more than normal uncomfortable eye contact.

Josh types, “Go get my food back, and I’ll protect you from him.” This, inexplicably, makes both Dad and Benrey laugh. Or– Dad laughs, Benrey’s orange eyes just glow a little brighter and crinkle up like crow’s feet.

Clearly jeering, Benry asks, “oh, feetman’s got anger issues?”

Dad laughs again, louder this time. “Yeah, man. Look at my fists, they’re balled.” Benry blinks at that, eyes flitting back to Josh and then away again.

“uhhhhhh bye.”

Benry fucking vanishes. Which– sure, fine, the rest of the Science Team do that sometimes too, but it’s not the same. Benry just clips out of the prosthetic’s grip, leaving behind nearly black blood dripping off of the digits and onto the carpet. And then he’s just– gone. Like, Bubby will drift away and through things, sometimes, but never just Poof. Josh’s sense of normal is messed up, but this is clocking in at Fucking Weird even to him.

Josh clears his throat, waiting for Dad to turn and look at him before signing, “Did you just break someone’s shoulder and threaten to kill them again?” Dad’s smile falters a little. Josh stands up, slowly, and then puts his hands out for Dad to take them because it’s always been a good way to ground each other, but now is definitely not the time to do it without checking in. Dad looks at Josh’s hands and doesn’t move his own. “Dad?” Josh prods. Dad sighs, scrubbing at his forehead the way he only does when Josh has just asked him a truly difficult-to-answer question, like, “Daddy can I have a fruit salad cowboy” or “why can’t we have sodas in the house?” or, once, “do you just know every old man in academia ever, or is it just that you know every old man it’s only old men in academia?”

“Let’s have dinner, okay? Tomorrow morning, we’ll call in the Science Team, and we can talk about Benry. But for now– he’s… he’s an old friend? He’s not human, so he doesn’t get a lot of stuff, and he likes pissing me off, but I think– I-I dunno what I think. He’s funny, and he had his good moments. When he wasn’t trying to kill me or selling me out to the military.” Josh blinks at his dad, slow and incredulous. Dad doesn’t show any sign of noticing how deeply fucked that sentence was, so Joshua, naturally, intervenes as calmly and clearly as possible:

_“When he wasn’t fucking PARDON?”_

* * *

So Benrey (“It works like this, Benry.” “no, benrey with an e, bro.” “Benrey?” “why’s it sound weird?” “It’s pronouncing the E, ‘bro.’” “pretty sucks. cringe words in the fail program.” “Call my program fail again fuckhead and I’ll take your playTation and throw it out the window!”) moves in. Which is weird. But only Josh’s problem until he goes back to Harvard for the last year of his master’s, and then he can just deal with Benrey fucking around in the background of Skype calls with his dad.

Currently, he has to deal with Benrey fucking around in _his_ background of Skype calls with his friend Rebecca. “He’s like,” he signs to Ribs exasperatedly, “like a weird uncle, or something.”

Ribs raises an eyebrow at him. “Another one?”

Josh sighs, dropping his hands to his sides and spinning around in his desk chair. “No, worse than Tommy and Darnold. They don’t—” the distant sound of a claw puncturing a violently-shaken can of sparkling water and then awful, _awful_ gargling noises, accompanied by his dad’s wheezing laughter— “I just heard him shake my La Croix and then poke a hole in it so they could shoot it into their face like a dog with a hose. And I think he’s doing it to flirt with Dad.”

Ribs doubles over laughing; Josh flips her off. “Is your dad into—?”

“Stop talking. Stop. Stop stop stop. However that sentence ends, the answer is ‘I don’t want to think about it.’” Ribs starts laughing again because she’s awful and deserves to be thrown directly out of a window. Josh waits until she’s looking at him again before he can continue, “The important thing here is that I have one more La Croix left in the fridge after that one got got.”

“Boo-hoo, no hint of hint of lime.”

Ribs is probably Josh’s best friend, and he’s very glad that they met, and he’s _doubly_ glad that she’s all the way up in Washington right now, because if she was being this unhelpful within whacking distance, she would have been so whacked. After a long call that consists mostly of Josh relaying terrible background sounds and Ribs defending Benrey because she likes chaos and also pissing Josh off, he pushes the chair back into the middle of the room, rolling to a stop just before he can hit the rug and topple to the ground.

Josh understands that his life isn’t normal. 

It’s something he figured out pretty quick when Dad’s ex got shared custody for a few years, and Josh saw, for the first time, what normal is supposed to look like: one dad married to one mom with a son and a daughter and a dog. And Josh is on speaking terms with that side of his family! He texts his half-sister like, once a week, and she sends him pictures of their tiny Yorkie in return. But speaking terms isn’t… family. Speaking terms isn’t cussing out one of the old men and getting the table cloth next to his plate set on fire. Speaking terms isn’t taste-testing soda-potion-combos and breathing chemical-induced icicles into the summer air. Speaking terms isn’t playing along with all the absolutely batshit stunts that the Science Team pulls because he knows it’ll make at least one person string together curses in the funniest possible order.

So Josh is on speaking terms with normality, but when given a choice, he picks his family, every time.

Right now, though, he’s not being given a choice between normality and his family. There’s no choice at all between the strange even for them and the family that everyone else wants Benrey to be a part of. There’s no choice, just someone in the kitchen who is taking everything stable about Josh’s family and shaking it up in a can and then biting the can and spilling chaos everywhere. (This isn’t a good analogy, but Josh is still thinking about the half-eaten aluminum can in the recycling. Benrey didn’t even swallow the can whole — he _took a bite out of it._ That shit’s gonna haunt Josh.) Right now, Josh has another note to add to his red-string corkboard of What Happened At Black Mesa, and a lot of questions to ask.

Dad clears his throat, and Josh spins around in his chair to face him. “Hey, kid, you wanna come grocery shopping?” It’s more courtesy than question – Josh used to insist on going with Dad for every errand, and it stopped being a big deal after years of therapy for his separation anxiety (and also his anxiety in general,) but the habit of asking stuck around. Benrey is lurking, almost out of Josh’s line of sight but not entirely, and Josh purses his lips. Benrey’s going with him. And Josh doesn’t know how much of this is the stress talking and how much of it is entirely fucking reasonable, but he’s going to be very worried about Dad’s safety if he’s alone with the weird monster man and out of Josh’s crime-witness-range.

“Yeah,” he signs, standing up and already brainstorming how to distract his dad enough to leave Benrey in the frozen goods section, “we’re out of sparkling water, anyway.”

* * *

Josh didn’t know to mention that on the “fight, flight, or freeze” reaction triangle, he is squarely in the “fight” corner, but he would have said something if he knew Benrey could pop up in the backseat on top of the produce and scare Josh so bad he’d whirl around and punch them square in the nose.

This is how Josh learns three things:  
1\. Benrey can teleport.  
2\. Benrey’s respect for Newton’s first law is shaky, at best.  
3\. Dad’s first prosthetic could knock Benrey around, but it’s the only thing he’s found that can.

Josh adds another note to his quickly growing digital corkboard.


	2. play: [shopkeep.mp3]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Benrey thought that no-clipping through Feetman’s bedroom door would finally get him to start yelling, but he just turns around from his computer with a soft smile and a, “C’mon, man. Gimme fifteen minutes?”
> 
> It’s not right. It’s super super wrong.
> 
> Feetman’s funny when he gets mad, and Feetman gives Benrey attention when he gets mad, but right now he’s just fucking? Giving them attention whenever? Soospichus. Fifteen minutes pass, and Benrey sits with his back against Feetman’s door because when he opens it and Benrey falls back, he can say that Feetman was being rude. Something’ll make him snap at them, and then Benrey can get sara toe nin from being noticed. And they won’t have to deal with Feetman being _nice_ at them. Don’t trust like that. S’fucking soos as hell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all for being so nice in the comments!! as of writing this note, the whole fic clocks in at over 15k and still getting bigger! I have had to split the WIP parts into two separate docs, and move all finished chapters to a _third_ doc just so I can actually touch the fic without google shutting down entirely. the full thing would be... around thirty-five pages?? I????
> 
> if this is the longest fic I ever write, I _might_ break down a bit. it's based on four and a half panels...
> 
> warnings for: cavalier discussion of murder, even more cavalier attitude towards death and resurrection, mention of forzen, old men flirting in front of a josh who really doesn't want to see this, and feelings of loneliness/being neglected

“I’m going to take a shot every time Benrey makes Dad laugh about something that’s not even funny,” Josh informs Tommy instead of saying hello, walking past him to get to his kitchen, shedding layers as he goes.

Tommy frowns, closing the door behind him and following to lean on the couch and look at him over the kitchen island. “I don’t think Mr. Freeman would be very happy if I let you get alcohol poisoning, Josh!” Josh groans, reaching into the fridge to grab some soda. Dad can’t even look at most carbonated things anymore, so Josh takes full advantage of the fact that Tommy’s fridge is constantly full of them and has some every time he comes over. LaCroix is fine, but Josh misses being able to have actual soda when he’s at home. 

The kitchen floor is a minefield of Erlenmeyer flasks, test tubes, graduated cylinders and, inexplicably, a whole barrel, but Josh is pretty used to stepping over the stands and bubbling chemicals by now. He hands the spare can to Tommy over the back of the couch, and Tommy accepts it with a smile. “I’m glad you got your friend back,” Josh signs, sitting down on the couch next to him and popping the tab with his teeth, “but I just wish Dad didn’t like him so much.” Tomy’s frown deepens, but now it’s with confusion.

There’s a moment of quiet. It’s the kind of quiet that Josh has come to recognize as Tommy’s Thinking About Phrasing pause, so Josh waits and takes a long sip. Eventually, Tommy says, “Benrey and Mr. Freeman had a– a, uh, a weird! Friendship! That kind of turned into… murder. Which was bad! But—”

“Okay,” Josh interrupts, setting the can down on the coffee table, “why did Dad kill Benrey? Because I know that happened, and I know it fucked everyone up, but I don’t know _why.”_ Tommy shifts in his seat a bit, thumb moving back and forth over the hem of his sweater sleeve. 

Should Josh be worried about how Benrey died and is back, and Dad never went to trial for murder? 

Probably. 

But if he’s worrying about that, then he also needs to be worried about the time he saw Bubby floating facedown in a pool for multiple hours and the fact that xe got out no problem when everyone was shouting at xir that the pool was _closing in five minutes, hurry up, asshole._ And the time Tommy got run over in a Kroger’s parking lot and then sat up a few seconds later, looking only mildly annoyed. And Coomer. 

Just– just Coomer. 

In general. 

He dies about once a week, minimum.

Tommy takes a sip and then starts, “The Resonance Cascade—” he pauses and looks over at Josh as if to check that he doesn’t need to explain further. Josh nods like, ‘go on’ because yes, Tommy, he _has_ heard about the ResCas, it’s almost impossible to grow up in this family and _not_ hear about the ResCas— “it really– it messed everything up! There were aliens, and– and creatures!” Josh raises his eyebrows, and Tommy deflates a little. Normally, Josh would just let him go on about this but… he knows this part of the story. He’s _known_ this part of the story! This is the beginning, and he’s pretty sure that the whole “Dad killed Benrey” thing came around near the end. Or, maybe the middle. Josh doesn’t know where the beginning/middle/end metrics fall in the patchwork story he’s gotten, but it doesn’t really matter because this is Tommy stalling, he’s almost certain of it. Tommy looks at him for a long moment, and then sighs, sinking into the couch cushions. “There’s a lot that I don’t want to sp– to talk about, Josh. And the bo– the fight, with Benrey, is one of them. It was… sad. And weird? And it made Dr. Coomer angry and– your _dad—”_ he closes his mouth. Opens it again, seemingly to finish the thought, but then he screws up his face and takes a drink instead.

Josh wants to pry for more information. Why was there a fight? What was it about? What went so wrong in the depths of Black Mesa that Dad – _Josh’s dad,_ who shoos spiders out of the house and was convinced to help foster a kitten in twenty minutes flat and, may Josh repeat, _is his fucking dad –_ killed someone and no one even thought to mention it until the would-be corpse showed back up at the Freemans’ door? And it’s not the murder! Josh knows it’s not the murder because he has heard about all the other murders! He knows about all the Coomer clones and innocent guards and scientist deaths that weren’t supposed to happen, so why— wait. He… _has_ heard about all the other murders, right? “Did you guys kill anyone else that I never heard about?” Josh asks, suddenly very concerned for his winter break’s already-threatened peace and quiet.

Tommy shakes his head. Thank fuck. “Wait!” God, fuck. “There’s also– well, we don’t know if Forzen is dead.”

Josh stares at him. Takes a really long sip from his soda. Counts to three internally. Signs, “Who the fuck is _Forzen?”_ without having a whole panic attack, which he deserves an award or six for accomplishing.

“He gave me a Beyblade!” Tommy says.

Josh waits for a further explanation.

He doesn’t get one.

Yeah. Just fucking _shocking,_ that. Not really sure why he was expecting anything else in the first place, honestly! Josh feels a lot like the reader of a plothole-ridden book, hearing the Science Team talk about Black Mesa. Probably because what story he _has_ picked up is filled with holes where Benrey and, apparently, _Forzen_ was. “So if another weird not-cop in fed boots shows up at my door, it’ll be Forzen, and I can go get Dad,” signs Josh with a one-armed shrug. “Sure. Fine.” Not like it’s the weirdest thing that’s happened to him. (He’s _still_ thinking about that chewed La Croix, man.)

“Oh– no, Forzen was a bootboy! Mr. Freeman hated him. And– and he took my Beyblade away.” Tommy scowls at the memory. Josh considers asking where the hell a cop got a Beyblade in an irradiated, underground laboratory filled with aliens, and, further-fucking-more, why there was a cop in an irradiated, underground laboratory filled with aliens _in the first place,_ but Josh asked a very simple thing and got stalling, a very direct “please don’t make me talk about this” and more questions than he started out with. So. Not worth it.

It’s fine. Sharing some soda with Tommy is nice, too, even if Joshua’s Confused Soup Of Questions is going to boil over and bubble out of his ears if he doesn’t get some dots connected soon. At least Sunkist joins them and is very warm and fluffy in their general vicinity; that’s pretty great.

* * *

Josh hasn’t played Chutes and Ladders since– okay, since last week when he got here and everyone had a game night, but the point is, it’s a stupid game to play in the living room with your dad and. Unfortunately. With Benrey. The only reason Josh hasn’t found something else to do in town – something usually pops up when he looks close enough – is that Dad called it a “bonding night” (like a nerd) and Benrey looked so distressed about that phrasing that Josh honest to god had to feign a coughing fit to cover the laughter so the guy wouldn’t.

Uh.

Josh doesn’t actually know why he’s so worried about laughing at Benrey? They don’t exactly give off “bad highschool movie bully” vibes; Josh isn’t worried about getting shoved into a locker by them. Maybe it’s just the freaky vibes. And the shadow over his eyes despite not having anything on his head to cast a shadow. And the teeth. 

…Josh is maybe a _little_ worried that Benrey will just straight up eat him, like a fairytale monster. (Or like the can in the recycling. What the fuck are their teeth even _made of_ that chewing all that aluminum wasn’t a problem for them?)

(Yes, Josh is still hung up on that. He said it was gonna haunt him, and Joshua C. Freeman doesn’t go around _lying.)_

Benrey is moving his little pawn up a chute. “You can’t climb a slide,” Dad is already explaining, fondly patient. It’s a tone that Josh heard a lot after Dad came back from Black Mesa, usually directed at one of the other Science Team members when they were doing some horrific and/or inhuman shit. It’s a tone that Josh heard a lot through middle school when he was convinced that Pre-Algebra was going to make him drop out and work in a McDonald’s under a bridge for the rest of his life. It’s a tone that Josh feels _very weird_ about hearing directed at this alien motherfucker. Weird in a bad way. _That’s for family only,_ he wants to hiss, but he gets the feeling that neither Benrey (who doesn’t care about Josh’s input) nor Dad (who, infuriatingly, seems about half a hug from getting Benrey a matching Christmas sweater) would be at all discouraged.

Benrey plonks his piece at the top of the chute. “watch me.”

Josh signs, “You can’t just let him outright fucking cheat,” at Dad, frustrated beyond belief. Literally, it is not believable how frustrating Benrey is. He should turn them in as an example of the world’s most irritating human brain to his psychology professor. If Benrey’s human. Probably not. Goodbye, extra credit.

Dad holds up an _I know, calm down_ hand, sitting back upright since he doesn’t have anything to lean on. “You have to follow the basic rules, Benrey,” Dad says, half-scolding. Benrey raises their eyebrows at him like, ‘bro, have you met me?’ Dad snorts. (It’s not funny. Josh, in lieu of a shot, takes a sip of his sparkling water.) “Yeah, I know. But this game’s not fun if you break all the rules.”

Josh, who has not been able to turn his music up loud enough to avoid hearing how Benrey talks, tugs on Dad’s knotted-up shirt sleeve and suggests, “Tell him he’s a fake gamer if he has to break out the hacks.”

“I’m not gonna do that.”

“He kind of is, though.”

“He’s a fake gamer, anyway,” Dad says, and _uh, pretty sure Benrey heard that!_ Nice one, father dearest. Real discrete. Jesus. Benrey doesn’t look angry, though; it doesn’t stop Josh from sitting back to put a little more distance between himself and the freaky fanged non-person. Actually, they look kind of… _relieved?_ That can’t be right. Josh is missing something.

Benrey’s face shutters up, any hint of real emotions vanishing into the shadow of the helmet that Josh has long since given up vandalizing with sharpies, and he jeers, “feetman’s jealous of my epic gamer skills? huh? sore little loser can’t beat benrey? just get good, bro.” Dad laughs, and Benrey’s eyes start glowing again. Josh takes a long sip of his sparkling water.

“That’s not– you’re not even following the _rules of the game—”_

“i’m– following the fuck out of them. do you not know the rules?”

“Of course I know—!”

Neither of them are looking at Josh, too busy bickering about the absolute stupidest shit in the stupidest way, so Josh just. Moves Benrey’s piece back to the bottom of the slide. And then spins the spinner and moves his own little pawn, climbs the ladder as is his right as the only normal person in the room, and then waits for Dad to stop gesturing wildly to poke him in the shoulder. “Your turn,” he signs.

Dad’s distracted smile turns a little more genuine, and he reaches over to ruffle Josh’s hair. “Thanks, kid.” Josh bats him away, overdramatically running a hand through his hair to fix the mess Dad just made of it. Dad lands at the top of a slide, and he sighs before dragging the shitty little plastic base down it with a defeated, “Wheeeee.” Josh snorts and leans into him to knock at his shoulder. Fucking nerd. He’s been playing it like that since Josh was tiny, and it has never once been anything other than ridiculous.

It taught Josh to make noises when going down the slides at the playground, though, which was fun for Josh and ear-blood-inducing for everyone else.

Benrey clicks his tongue against his teeth. “cheater,” they say in a blank voice that is somehow almost a whine, glaring at Josh. Josh grins at him. “fuckers took my slide-climbing shoes. can’t have shit in detroit.” Dad’s sitting on the wrong side of Josh to be subtle about fist-bumping him, and also, it’d probably lead to more dumbass arguing, so Josh just grins wider and finishes off his drink.

Josh wins. Dad throws his pawn at him, which makes Benrey ask about littering like this is a public place and not the living room floor, which makes both of them start arguing again even if Dad’s mostly laughing and Benrey’s mostly trying to find something to say to make Dad get frustrated with them, and Josh screws up his face. Bonding night. Sure. Josh chucks his own pawn at Benrey (and is entirely ignored and/or forgotten) and then goes to get ready for bed.

There’s a knock on his doorframe as he’s pulling on his sleep shirt, and he turns around to see Dad, giving him a small, hopeful smile. “Have fun?”

Josh hesitates. Game nights are always loud, and he had wished, just a week ago, that someone quieter would come and add a little more equilibrium into the volume of the room. And Benrey was quiet, sure, but in the way that the whine of an electric light is quiet. Noticeable and distracting and an irritant — like a papercut in addition to a migraine. Dad is looking at him, though, like he wants to know if the bonding night worked. Like he wants to hear that Josh doesn’t feel angry and confused every time Benrey says stupid and mean shit that Dad only ever laughs at, like a joke that Josh is just outside of. Like lines of a story that Josh hasn’t read. “Yeah,” he signs after a second, “it was fun.” If Dad notices the lie, he doesn’t say anything.

Josh isn’t sure he did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I take a while to get around to responding to comments, but I read all of them and they make me very very happy, so thank you all!!


	3. (You cannot skip this cutscene.)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Benrey can still spawn shit in the weird Kinda Game, so he spawns in a little quarter. Just a little one. Benrey can have little a currency, as a treat.
> 
> Benrey needs to ask Feetman why he's chill with them being around him. And also being around his shit baby who's grown up and whatever, now, but is actually. A baby. (Shit baby and Bubby still get mad at him, but they're the only two. Benrey mostly feels weird about it because they're doing it in a protective way instead of an annoyed way. It sucks.) "heads, i gotta talk to feetman about feelings 'n shit," Benrey mumbles. It's dark, which means the Feetmen are sleeping, so Benrey has to be quiet while they do their bad and evil coin tricks. "tails, i can uhhhhhh. play." What games does Feetman have? "halo." Ew. Better than feelings, though.
> 
> Heads.
> 
> Piss.
> 
> That was a test, Benrey's, uh. Test was a success. He can do the actual flip, now. Where tails means talking to feetman and heads means Halo.
> 
> Tails.
> 
> _Piss._
> 
> Benrey's not human, so he can just. Not sleep. Keep running, uh… tests. 'Til the coin works. Yeah.
> 
> First coin flip rules: go!
> 
> Heads. 
> 
> _PISS._
> 
> This is gonna be a long not-sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [slams into writer's block full force like it's a brick wall] wuh-oh
> 
> uh! unless my math is wrong (which, to be fair, it might be; I have to add across three different docs that might have redundancies, and then I have to subtract from _two_ of those added together but not the third one?? it's very bewildering) the fic is now around 18k and uh. still going. I know every time I update this fic I'm just kind of mind-boggled at how long it's getting and I'm sure that must be getting tiring but. h. how. how did this. from four and a half panels, this has spawned. _how._
> 
> enjoy the shitshow, I suppose! **warnings for:**  
>  \- discussions of past violence/attempted murder  
> \- dunkin donuts  
> \- the emotional/mental aftermath of (gestures at black mesa)  
> \- discussions of gordon's missing arm & the Potion's replacement  
> \- josh's separation anxiety coming out in full force  
> \- mention of compulsive tendencies  
> \- the general Dubious Nature of using sweet voice to influence someone's feelings  
> \- soda!  
> \- benrey-typical can consuming  
> \- benrey-typical I Couldn't Give A Shit About Death, **meaning in this instance attempted "suicide"** (?? dunno how to describe it. he is Not Allowed to go through with it don't worry)  
> \- probability that would make a statistics teacher cry (this is a surprise tool that will help us later!)
> 
> ....this is not the sad chapter, I swear.

Darnold is just as in the dark as Josh is, which means that Josh is going to have to rearrange the thumbtacks and red string on his digital corkboard when he gets back home. His hands are too cold right now to worry about it, even with the gloves. “You don’t know _anything_ about why Dad killed them?” Josh presses through the TTS, just in case. (How much money did Josh waste on gloves that had touchscreen-compatible fabric on the fingertips? It wasn’t a waste, so shut up, that’s how much.)

Darnold’s expression twists like, ‘sorry, bud,’ and Josh groans, gesturing in a dramatic _why, god?_ fashion with the hand he's using to hold his phone. (The other is holding Sunkist’s leash because Darnold has a better memory and left Josh to stand outside with her while he went in and ordered everything from Dunkin Donuts. Now, Darnold is holding the bags of food and the cupholders of drinks in a balancing act that makes Josh. _So_ nervous. It’s not like he didn’t offer to hold any!) “The last thing of note that I saw between Benrey and your father before I turned on my rocket boots—” Josh mentally adds a thumbtack and a post-it note titled _“ROCKET BOOTS??”_ connected to _“DARNOLD”_ with red string— “was your father testing out his new arm on Benrey’s face. It was the most blood I had ever seen, up until a few moments later, when they murdered some soldiers, and I saw more! Which was, scientifically speaking, distressing.” Josh blinks. Okay. So when Dad said that his first prosthetic could knock Benrey around, he knew that because of beating their face in. 

That seems _wildly_ out of character, but, hey, two weeks around Benrey is stressing Josh out to the point of throwing shit at them, and their nonsense isn’t 1) directed at him and/or 2) during the fucking ResCas. What’s a little aggravated assault between friends when it’s the apocalypse? Josh has a few blurry memories of Dad half-shouting with distress at the Science Team when they had only just gotten out, and he’s gotten a couple of half-shouted sentences at himself when the school board was pulling some bullshit. If minor stress like that means getting angry at his loved ones, Josh would be willing to bet that with the theoretical _end of the fucking world_ hanging over his head, some violence towards an asshole would be on the table. “So, Dad beat Benrey up?” Josh knows that they met Darnold pretty late in their quest to get out of Black Mesa, so that little exchange was probably a pre-cursor to the murder.

Darnold’s mouth presses thin. “He shot him.”

Josh stops walking. “You said he was testing his arm.”

“Yes.”

“So, testing if it could pull a trigger?” Darnold looks uncomfortable. Josh can feel the lightbulb go off above his head at the same time that Sunkist boofs and sits down on her haunches, apparently tired of Josh holding her back. “Darnold,” says the TTS voice, entirely undercutting the seriousness of the moment, “what was Dad’s first prosthetic?”

“The potion was only supposed to taste like brown,” Darnold says, the explanation like a dam breaking, “but Dr. Freeman tasted green, too, and I think that something in his immune system registered it wrong—” Josh loops Sunkist’s leash around his wrist so he can put that hand on Darnold’s shoulder; hopefully, the gesture is some comfort. Darnold sighs. “Your father’s right arm was a minigun for… some amount of time, Joshua. I don’t know what happened to it after Black Mesa, or when he got the myoelectric replacement, but… I do know it was the better option. And I know that, as a scientist, it was the right thing to do so he wouldn’t die.” Josh can feel the red strings re-looping themselves and new post-it note theories scribbling out faster than he can think of coherent words to put on them, but Darnold looks about three seconds from a crisis, so he shuts it all down. Josh tucks his phone into his pocket, sets the Dunkin down on the concrete, and pulls the man into a hug.

No one stops to stare at the perfect dog sitting guard for an excessive amount of Dunkin Donuts while her humans hug it out in the middle of the sidewalk, which is nice of them.

Eventually, Josh pulls back and gives Darnold a grin, signing, “I think that the gun arm might have had less of a lasting psychological effect than everything else that happened there, so. Good job.” Darnold laughs nervously, and Josh pats him comfortingly on the shoulder again.

(If a series of mini-gun bullets to the face wasn’t enough to do Benrey in, then what happened that led to them to spend twenty years regenerating? Where did Dad get his myoelectric, and why was it strong enough to crush Benrey’s shoulder if it wasn’t a Black Mesa custom-build? What kind of potion gives someone a minigun for an arm? Where did the bullets come from? Some violence, sure, but what did Benrey do to lead Dad to _shoot them in the face with a fucking minigun?)_

Josh picks up one of the bags before Darnold can stop him and signs, “Rocket boots?” It’s enough to get him talking, and, for the next fifteen minutes of their walk back to Tommy’s place, Josh gets to listen to the mechanics and uses of rocket boots that Darnold still has in the attic.

* * *

Dad isn’t back yet. Dad _should_ be back by now; he only left to the Target down the road to get more shitty chips and crackers and to give everyone a chance to drink some soda without making him gag. That’s a fifteen-minute roundtrip, twenty if he’s dragging his feet, _maybe_ twenty-five if he’s being super nice and giving them all extra time. At twenty-five, nicety or not, Josh would start to freak out.

It’s been forty-five minutes.

Josh is well past “starting to freak out” and firmly in “a stiff breeze away from a panic attack” territory, which is fun. Josh loves being worried about his Dad’s whereabouts, like a toddler who has yet to learn what object permanence is. It’s great. He is having just… _so_ much fun, right now. Love it. Fantastic.

(“Some of the symptoms may come back during times of stress, or sudden change,” his therapist had said when Josh mentioned being worried about Dad leaving the house again. Between needing to graduate, applying for colleges, and dad’s ex asking if Josh wanted to stay with them if Stanford accepted him, Josh had never been more stressed in his _life,_ so yeah, some separation anxiety coming back checked out. Josh wonders if the sudden ‘re’appearance of someone strange that he’d never even heard about was what brought it back, this time. Probably. Fucker.)

Coomer pauses the documentary they’re all watching – the one that Josh is going to hear parroted by the good doctor for the next ten to twenty years, knowing Coomer – and asks, “Joshua, are you okay? You seem quite frightened!”

‘Frightened.’ Haha. Funny, that, because Josh is feeling both good and also normal. “I’m good,” he signs.

Bubby raises a judgy eyebrow at him. “You’re shaking like a rabid chihuahua, and I’m pretty sure you don’t normally do that.” Josh glares. Bubby glares back. 

Josh realizes, at exactly this moment, that he is entirely surrounded by shitty old men and Benrey. Okay, Tommy and Darnold are here too, but they’re still old men, so it counts. “It’s fine. Dad’s gonna be coming back any minute now, and I’m _fine.”_ Tommy cringes like he always does when he notices that, ah, this person is Not Okay, and Josh glowers at the extended Science Team, picking at his hangnails and slumping further into his corner of the couch. Dad is fine. Dad is coming back soon. Dad didn’t leave him, on accident or on purpose, and he’ll be back soon.

(When Josh was in elementary school, and Dad would drop him off in the mornings, they had their routine. Josh would shrug on his backpack in the dropoff lane and sign, “Okay.”

“Don’t start any fights,” Dad would say.

“I’ll try. Don’t die.”

“I’ll try. Love you, bye.”

“Love you, bye!” And Josh would get out of the car, and everything would be fine. And then it kept going. Every time Dad had to leave the house on his own, he’d tell Josh how long it would take to get home, and Josh would keep that in mind, and he’d say, “Don’t die.”

And Dad would say, “I’ll try.” And the door would shut, and Josh would be okay because Dad almost always got home before his mental timer went off, and when he didn’t, he’d text Josh the new estimate.)

(What happened is what happened. Josh just needed to breathe. Deep breaths. What happened is what happened. Breathe.)

(Josh knows that him not saying “Don’t die” this time didn’t impact anything. He knows that it’s a stupid habit that doesn’t change anything, okay? He knows. But it’s been forty-five minutes, and Josh is remembering clinging to his daycare teacher’s leg as she called and called and called and—)

Benrey puts a freezing cold hand on top of his head. “Not right now—” Josh starts because if a stiff breeze will push him into a full-on panic attack, Benrey “category five hurricane gale” Benrybenryb _will not fucking help,_ and then Benrey is singing blue raspberry directly into his face. It reminds him of when he helped dogsit Sunkist as an eighth-grader to earn (extort) some cash from Tommy, and she got too excited at the dog park and sang a bunch of amber at him while he was petting her. Josh was bouncing around, energized on lychee-flavored Sweet Voice for the next half hour. Josh just got the alien version of dog drool slapped on him, and he feels… weirdly not freaked out or angry about it? The adrenaline is fading, too, probably from the bizarre distraction throwing his brain off the track it was on. “Why does it taste like that?” Josh asks.

Benrey, who doesn’t know ASL, only says, “looked a little unchill. calm-down time.” Josh raises an eyebrow at them. Benrey grins at him with a truly horrifying amount of teeth; they’re not even sharp teeth! It’s just that there’s _too many_ of them. “benny boy saves the day,” they add proudly. 

“You’ve been very brave!” Coomer says proudly, and Josh rolls his eyes.

There’s a knock at the door, and even though most of Josh’s energy is blanketed over with blue raspberry, he still vaults over the back of the couch to answer, signing, “I got it!” There’s a familiar cacophony of sipping from behind him (it’s got to be Dad, and they need to finish the sodas before he has to see them) as he undoes the deadbolt and opens the door. “Whoa, how many Pringles cans did you get?” Josh asks, shoulders slumping at the relief of seeing his dad safe, sound, and absolutely _laden_ with snacks.

What happens is what happens. Josh can breathe again.

Dad shrugs. Chip bags rustle when he does so, implying that he has even _more_ chips stashed in his jacket. “They had a sale,” he says, sounding more defensive than he really needs to be. Actually, that amount of defensiveness will be very useful when they get back into the living room where Bubby and Coomer are. Dad shuffles in the door, and Josh closes it behind him. “You, uh… you’ve got something there, kid.” Josh blinks up at him. Dad is gesturing at his whole entire face.

Oh, right. Sweet Voice. “Benrey,” he signs simply as he wipes at the leftover blue stain, and sure enough, Dad gets it without any further clarification. There’s a metallic crunch from the living room. Dad’s face droops with exasperation at the same time Josh’s does. “Also Benrey?” Josh checks, and Dad sighs.

“He keeps _eating_ cans.” That’s a yes, then.

“I know; I saw a chewed-up La Croix in the recycling that’s going to haunt me until I die. We couldn’t put him up for adoption or something?”

“He’s not a stray cat.” Josh gives him a Look. If they eat plastic like a cat, swat shit off of counters like a cat, and get Dad to form an emotional attachment to them within an hour like a cat… what’s that saying about ducks? Dad drops a plastic bag filled with _way_ too many bags of Doritos into his arms and says, “Stray cats don’t have opposable thumbs,” and, you know what? He makes an excellent point. Cats were denied opposable thumbs so they couldn’t commit straight-up war crimes, even if they could commit most other crimes, and Benrey is probably a war criminal. 

He has the vibes.

Well, they don’t, but they’re old friends with the Science Team, (who are all war criminals) and Josh isn’t really expecting the gaming, pizza-roll-stealing, aluminum-chewing shitpost of a person (“person”) to have been a source of upstanding morality. Anyway. “Did they ever spit blue at you?” Josh asks – half honest curiosity and half to distract Dad while he stuffs a bag of Doritos down his shirt so he can have all the cool ranch to himself. It’s an impressive balancing act if he does say so himself: signing and holding onto the bag and also shoving a family-size packet of chips through the neck of his shirt. Darnold’s been teaching him some tricks.

Dad gets a look on his face that Josh thinks he recognizes from when Josh asked if his Calculus professor would ramble like a motherfucker back when they went to MIT together. “A couple of times,” Dad says in a voice like he means _so goddamn much._ Josh nods thoughtfully, loops the plastic bag over Dad’s arm, and gets out his phone to add another post-it note. (Dad doesn’t notice the addition.) “He mostly did it when I was freaking out, and I– hated it because I was stressed out of my mind and maybe a little high and? I thought he was trying to get us all killed? But. I don’t know. Looking back, it was nice that they’d calm me down, even when they were the one annoying me half the time. Probably stopped me from having a full-on meltdown at least once.” Josh’s thumbs still over the screen. Dad is walking back into the living room and getting greeted by various jokes and jeers about all of the snacks, but Josh just stands where he is for a moment.

Benrey Sweet Voiced him when Josh was panicking about Dad being gone. And it was surreal, being smothered in so much calm all at once when previously there had been so much worry and guilt, but… it sounds like twenty-some years ago, they were doing something pretty similar so they could help? And even if he was just doing it for the sake of it, this time or the last, the Sweet Voice _did_ help.

Josh frowns.

He finally types out, _“SWEET VOICE: INHERENTLY NICE?”_ and pins it between Sunkist and Benrey’s respective sections of his digital corkboard. He’ll work out the finer details later – right now, Coomer’s saying that he could kill a whale-shark with nothing but his fists, which is definitely the sort of bullshit that’s going to lead to a room-wide debate that Josh doesn’t want to miss.

* * *

Benrey is sitting at the kitchen counter with a milk mustache, flipping a coin, and looking annoyed. They look up at him when he enters the room, and Josh gives him a lazy, drawling, “Good morning,” hoping the deadpan expression conveys how little he means that even if the signs themselves don’t, “if you touched my pizza rolls again, I’m going to throw you off the balcony.” From the milk on his upper lip, he’s clearly gotten into one of the cartons, and Josh doesn’t want to guess _which_ when pouring milk for his cereal, in case he gets it wrong, so. Pizza rolls. Unless this fucker has eaten them all again.

Benrey looks up from the coin just as he slaps it on his wrist, tails-up. “huh?” Josh rolls his eyes, opening the freezer. Sure enough: no more pizza rolls.

Josh sighs, closing the freezer door and reaching up on top of the fridge to grab some of the bagels that are, mercifully, out of the shitty cryptid’s reach. “Go throw yourself off the balcony,” Josh instructs Benrey, the signs as polite and filled with as much nicety as he can manage – kind of like when telling a pet that it’s a stinky and horrible bastard, but doing so in a baby voice. Well– no, not really, that feels kind of gross and dehumanizing. 

Even if. 

Benrey isn’t a. 

Look, Josh says his insults very cheerfully because he thinks it’s funny, okay? It makes Dad laugh! Yeah, unlike Dad, Benrey doesn’t know ASL or understand that Josh is being an asshole, but who cares if the actual words are lost behind the politeness? Tommy said he didn’t like it when his friends were fighting, anyway. Benrey blinks at him. They look down at their coin and flip it again – heads – and then stand up and start heading for the sliding door out to the balcony.

…Benrey _doesn’t_ know ASL, right? And if he did, he wouldn’t actually listen to Josh?

They’re hitching a leg over the railing. 

They absolutely know ASL and are listening to Josh, fuck, shit, goddamnit; Tommy and Dad will be so upset if he lets the asshole die again.

Josh runs out after him and grabs him by the back of the hoodie right as he sits down on the railing with his legs hanging out into empty space, tugging him back down onto the patio. “I wasn’t _serious,”_ Josh signs, admittedly a little frantic, “I’m just pissed that you keep eating all my food! Don’t fucking—” he trails off into frustrated, panicked flailing. 

Benrey blinks up at him from where he’s lying on his back like a big, stupid turtle. (Well. Little stupid turtle. Benrey is the only Black Mesa motherfucker who isn’t taller than Josh. And it’s not like Josh is short! But the shortest (non-limb-extending) person in his family is _six feet tall,_ which would be fine if said six-foot-tall person had passed on those height genetics, but _no._ Dad kept all the height to himself. Not that it mattered when Tommy was nearly seven feet tall, but– okay, the _point_ is, Josh has dealt with too many jabs at his height to ever make similar jabs at Benrey out loud, but oh boy, does he think it.) “make up your mind,” they say after a second, their tone jeering in a way that’s a little strange to hear directed at him and not at Dad, “do you wanna kill me or not?”

Josh gapes at him. _“Not?”_ Benrey blinks again, but this time it seems less like their usual ‘not comprehending anything’ and more like… surprise? “I don’t want you to steal my food, and it’d be nice if you would wait more than ten minutes to teleport back after I trick Dad into leaving you at the grocery store, but I don’t want you _dead!_ Jesus Christ!” 

Benrey squints at him. Not disbelieving, or anything, just sort of… confused. “i’ve got mad hacks, bro. i’d respawn. it’s chill.” It’s Josh’s turn to squint, now, and this is when it hits him that, hey, asshole, _Benrey went through Black Mesa too, and they might not have gotten twenty years of therapy._ Hm. Maybe Benrey needs a psychiatrist more than a good kick. Like, he probably also needs a good kick, but that amount of nonchalance about your own death and subsequent resurrection can _not_ be a sign of being one hundred percent good and okay in the brain. Benrey laughs, just a little bit, and mumbles, “gaymer.” Josh pinches the bridge of his nose.

That ‘give Benrey a good kick’ option is _really_ appealing, but he’s not going to literally kick someone while they’re down. No matter how cathartic it might be. “Just– quit eating my pizza rolls. And don’t drink milk out of the carton! That’s nasty.”

“gordos does it.”

Josh’s face wrinkles up. “Well, he’s my dad, so I can’t stop him.” Benrey’s eyes widen a little, prompting, like they know there’s more to that sentence. And there is: “Still nasty, though.” Benrey laughs, sharp in a way that reminds Josh of TV static, and Josh turns and goes back through the doors. This has been enough of a talk for one day, he thinks. Also, he’s fucking hungry, and that bagel isn’t going to toast itself.

“yo, wait, your coins are broken,” Benrey calls after him, which is confusing enough that Josh turns around. Benrey’s standing like a foot away from him, flipping the same coin from before. Goddamn, would it kill them to follow at least some of the laws of consistency? Josh can’t keep up with all the bullshit teleportation! “keeps telling me to talk to feetman.” Josh cocks his head in confusion, and Benrey takes a step closer. “heads: i can play halo. tails: i have to talk to feetman.” He flips the coin, catches it in his palm, and then smacks it onto the back of his other hand. Tails. “fuck. do-over. _heads:_ i have to talk to feetman.” Flip, catch, smack. Heads.

Josh nabs the coin, signs, “On heads, you have to talk to Dad,” and then flips it. He has to do the same stupid smack thing because that flips the coin over, but shining up from the back of Josh’s hand is the embossed cliffs that sit on the tail of the New Mexico quarter. Benrey looks blank, but they look blank even when they’re feeling things, so Josh just assumes that they’re impressed. “There. As payment: don’t touch my shit.” Benrey shrugs and holds his hands out for Josh to drop the quarter into them. Josh, who has probably just prevented some important talk that needed to happen but honestly doesn’t care, flicks it at Benrey’s face and then goes to cut his bagel in half so it’ll fit in the toaster.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> remember how I said this wasn't the sad chapter? the next one is. Get Ready!


	4. save file as:

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gordon's sleepy face does a sad thing, which, uh, uh-oh. Benrey's not trying to make him _sad,_ just annoyed. "I don't hate you anymore." Double uh-oh. Benrey starts to deflect (does Gordon still have fucking _cable?_ Feetman's watching fucking uh, Macy's Thanksgiving Parade?) but Gordon reaches up and holds the side of his face. Anything that he says immediately after that is lost to static. Gone. Bye. He's holding their face. Always do that, please? Forever? "It was really complicated," Gordon is saying and ughhh they should be paying attention, maybe, "and it still is, but. I don't know. Black Mesa was fucked up, and _we_ were fucked up, but... after a while, I missed you."
> 
> This is their cue to make fun of him. Gordon is being nice to him, and like, _gentle,_ and shit, like he's gonna break otherwise. It's dumb. Benrey was mean and bad he was _bad_ and Gordon is falling asleep like he trusts Benrey enough for that and—
> 
> and Benrey loves him.
> 
> Benrey loves him and Gordon isn't letting them avoid it by being disgusted and angry at them. Benrey loves him and it's not _fair._
> 
> Benrey loves him, and they can almost pretend Gordon loves them, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if I don't look at the word count, it can't hurt me.
> 
> this one is: sad, but also soft! so don't worry. we haven't even gotten to _josh's_ breakdown yet. :)
> 
>  **warnings this chapter include:**  
>  **-canon-typical unreality**  
>  -philosophical discussions  
> -brief mentions of bubby dying (xe's fine, dwai)  
> -excessive references to actual joshua  
> -bubby's driving  
> -distress because of not following through on compulsions (the 'don't die' thing was not a one-off)  
> -So Much Sweet Voice  
> -mario kart  
>  **-alcohol  
>  -discussion of the betrayal and amputation**  
> -benrey's uh. not doing so hot. just like, in general
> 
> translations for the sweetvoice in the end notes! fair warning, I may slow down on posting because school and work are,, kicking my ass. no one needs this many morning shifts...

It’s January 6th, which means that Dad needs the house to himself for meeting purposes (that Josh is sure he was told about but that absolutely did not sink into his brain) so Benrey fucked off to god knows where, and Josh is staying with Bubby and Coomer until later tonight. Bubby made fun of his hair, which was great because he hadn’t had the opportunity to bully xir for going completely bald until then. Coomer enlisted him into helping cook dinner, and Josh is happy to say that they did a pretty good job together. It’s taken extensive taste-testing, but he’s on his second helping, and yep: edible. “Joshua,” Coomer begins, and Josh looks up from his mashed potatoes at the old man. Coomer is staring down at his own plate, and he’s holding a fork and knife, but it doesn’t look like he’s touched his dinner. “What would you do if one day you woke up, and realized everything around you was fake?” Bubby chokes on xir chicken. Josh doesn’t blame xir – it’s kind of a non sequitur, but god knows he’s certainly come up with weirder shit to talk about during dinners over here. It’s just him and the grandpas, so at least the conversation probably won’t turn to cannibalism.

Again.

Bubby says, “Dr. _Coomer,”_ like a warning, but Coomer just looks up at Josh. Waiting for an answer.

Josh shrugs, chewing thoughtfully. He took a philosophy class for like, a semester before the lack of concrete answers drove him nuts and he transferred out. Existentialism just isn’t for him, he supposes, but he’s definitely had to think about something like this before now. “I mean,” he signs after setting down his utensils, “in what sense? Like, in an ‘I don’t actually exist’ way, or in an ‘I’m in a coma and this is all elaborately strung together by my dying neurons’ way?” Bubby is watching xir partner like any second now, he’s going to explode. It wouldn’t be the first time. But usually, Coomer’s excited when that happens, and right now he’s being _weirdly_ serious. Josh hopes he’s not having an existential crisis. No one at the table is equipped to deal with that. Hell, the entirety of the Science Team, combined, are not equipped to deal with that.

Coomer twists his face, probably thinking about how to word it. “If you looked at the world around you and finally understood that it was made of pixels,” he says carefully, “and that you were just… coding, designed to assist and provide a motive to someone important to you. And they wore pixels like you but were truly from outside of the game. What would you do?”

Josh chews on his tongue. Video games. There’s been a lot of stuff about video games in his life, recently, what with Ribs getting that software developer job and Benrey’s. Benrey-ness. But to be _in_ a video game isn’t something that he’s really thought about before. (Tron gave him nightmares for a week when he was in second grade, and then he refused to touch them for the next seven years. He’s only good at Mario Kart because the cloud guy that brings your character back onto the tracks convinced his little-kid brain that even if he did get sucked in, he’d be safe.) He hums and then says, “Find the cheat codes to make myself invincible, and then go stick my arm in some lava. I’ve always wondered what it feels like. I mean– other than burning.” Coomer and Bubby share a Look. Josh is beginning to think that, actually, he’s missing something here. “Why—”

“I think we should change the subject now!” Bubby announces, and Coomer’s face brightens into its usual semi-vacant smile in half a second.

Josh scowls, more confused than frustrated (but still definitely frustrated because _what the fuck, guys)_ but Coomer cuts off any possible questions with, “Excellent idea, Bubby! Joshua, how has your Cleverbot been coming?” Bubby gives xir housemate another Look, but it’s one that Coomer ignores entirely. Alright, so Josh’s coding is semi-related to the ‘what if we lived in a video game’ discussion, but not enough that Bubby’s willing to actually call Coomer out on it. Probably because it’s more programming and AI shit.

Josh makes a mental note to Skype – not text, that just leads to incomprehensible keysmashing – Coomer about whatever the fuck this was later, and starts, “Uh, pretty good! It’s been a little glitchy lately, but I think I’ll still have Dad talk with it soon, just to get a new set of eyes on it.” The rest of the night goes without major incident – or, well, no, there is the toaster oven exploding and blowing shrapnel through Bubby, but without _unexpected_ major incidents. If something doesn’t catch fire, explode, or otherwise cause property damage and at least one old man’s death, it’s been a failed visit to the grandpas’ house. The fire department would probably disagree, but they stopped responding to calls out here years ago, so there’s no way to know for certain.

Bubby is the one who bundles him into the car and sets tupperware of leftovers on his lap for him to share with Dad and Benrey, which Josh is pretty sure was to make sure that he couldn’t talk with Coomer about the thought experiment at dinner. It is both very bold and very stupid of Bubby to think that Josh won’t annoy xir into talking about it anyway. He specifically made the TTS voice to make not knowing ASL everyone else’s problem, and it has since then turned into being everyone else’s problem regardless of why he’s using it. He’s had a very long time to get very annoying. “So what was that shit about video games at dinner?” Josh asks.

The car isn’t even out of the garage yet.

Bubby looks through the windshield like xe’s considering setting the engine on fire and making Josh walk home. Being a decent person (or maybe just the knowledge that Dad has previously murdered someone death-proof for twenty years, so the car engine bursting into flames and hurting Josh would probably get Bubby sent to the death zone for a good while) wins out, because xe just grits xir teeth and turns the key in the ignition. “Dr. Coomer’s just kind of like that, Joshua.” Ah, completely refusing to answer the question! Nice. Josh loves it when his family does this.

See, the best thing about Josh’s phone – aside from the custom TTS app he spent way too much time making compatible with bluetooth – is the clip tray. Normally, when you copy something, if you copy something else, it’s lost. Gone. You’d have to go back and re-copy it if you wanted to paste it anywhere. But Josh’s phone has a clip tray that stores the past ten things that he’s copied or cut, and it even gives him the ability to pin them so that they won’t vanish after he’s hit eleven copied phrases. The _reason_ that this is the best thing about his phone is that it means he only needs to tap the screen four times before the TTS is announcing, “One gigabyte just one, gigabytes (two), three gigaby-y-ytes-s-s, five– _five_ gigibytes, seven gig—”

Bubby speeds the car up because xe has a bad habit of pressing on the gas at the worst times, and also the brakes on the worst times, and just. Being a bad driver. In general. “You shut that shit off; I’m not talking to you.” Josh grins. He’s pretty proud of his app, actually. Once you’ve input something for it to read, it doesn’t stop until the input has all been output or it is forcibly interrupted.

“—still great! Nine gigabytes! That’s a funny number! Five gigabytes, back at it again. Giga-a-a-a-a-abyes ten! Wh—”

“I said shut that shit off!”

“—Norman Reedus—”

“Look, it’s _not my place to tell you!”_

Josh pauses the terrible copypasta. (Thank you, sleep deprivation, for turning his mid-afternoon messages to Dad into absolute nonsense that would later garner such reviews as “this should be banned under the Geneva Conventions,” “I’m going to beat you over the head any day now,” and of course, the classic, “oh my god, are you okay?” Very useful for getting people to tell him things, or to get them to never speak to him again. Truly, it’s a multifaceted tool.) A light turns yellow, meaning Bubby hits the brakes too suddenly and the tupperware nearly flies into the dashboard. Luckily, Josh has a protective arm over it and it stays in his lap, closed. He cuts the entirety of the text and replaces it with, “Who’s place is it? Coomer’s?”

Bubby grinds xir teeth again. It’s a minor miracle (and probably also a healthy dose of selective genetic modification) that xe doesn’t need dentures. “Your stupid chicken-head father’s,” xe says, like the words are a terrible swear. It’s kind of weird, honestly – Bubby has definitely called Dad worse than ‘chicken-head’ without an ounce of guilt. “Dr. Coomer only brought it up because he thought it’d be better us than Benrey.” 

So Benrey knows. And if Coomer started the conversation because he thought Benrey might say something, then it could be some kind of– of code, or something, that if he’d been paying more attention when Benrey talked, would have clicked into place and made sense. Or something. Probably… probably not _that_ because his family isn’t great at coordination, and the day anyone can make sense of Benrey’s nonsense is the day Josh dies, but. Something. And it _must_ be something about Black Mesa and Benrey, right? It has to be. Finally, a route to some _god damn answers._ “And he was right!” Bubby shouts, startling Joshua out of his theorizing, “I trust Benrey to be helpful about as far as I can throw him, and I’m an old man. I can’t throw for shit, Joshua!” Josh nods solemnly in agreement, preparing to get some crossed red strings to finally come untangled. He’s gonna piece together this fucking story, and he’s gonna do it _tonight._

“So, if I ask Dad about what he would… do if he were in a video game? I’ll get some answers about the shit that you guys have been weird about since Benrey came back?” Bubby laughs, xir regular awful cackle, and Josh scrunches his eyebrows together in confusion.

The light turns green. The car sputters and then roars into motion so fast that Josh can feel centrifugal force gluing him to the seat. “Ask him what he did when he w– no, that’s too much information. I can’t deal with you having that breakdown in a goddamn intersection. Ask him about video games and Black Mesa, but specify that you don’t give a rat’s ass about Heavenly Sword. Or Kane & Lynch 2. Shit game.” Bubby takes xir eyes away from the windshield to look at him like xe’s making sure that he got that, and Josh makes a wordless gesture for xir to look back at the _fucking road,_ Jesus! It’s a miracle nobody except Tommy has died from car accidents.

Josh still says, “Thank you,” deeply sincere in a way that he hopes is conveyed even through his sinful little program, and Bubby grins.

“You’re welcome! Finally, somebody who knows to be grateful for my genius.” Josh snorts and considers asking about the toaster oven, but then he remembers that he’s sitting in the deathtrap that is “any car with Bubby in it” and thinks better of it. Being a petty asshole who gets the last word in isn’t always the best course of action – especially when barrelling down the darkening streets in a franken-Cadillac driven by his routinely pyromaniacal pseudo-grandpa.

Josh, once again, _does recognize_ that his life is weird, okay? He knows. He is well-aware. Don’t look at him like that; he heard that last sentence, too.

His life only gets weirder when he opens the door to Dad’s apartment and is greeted by a faint gray haze of glowing light the second he walks in. It makes the room seem almost darker than it would be without that light, what with the way it throws everything into stark blacks and dull grays. It’s unnerving. Josh blinks up at the source of it— little lava-lamp blobs, floating near the ceiling. Josh sets the tupperware down on the big bookshelf that Dad swears he’s going to replace with an actual storage thing designed for sitting near the door and closes the door behind him quietly. 

Normally, this is when he’d hook up to the speaker in Dad’s office to call, “Hello? I’m home!” But this is. This isn’t right. None of this is what Josh is supposed to come home to, and it’s not just an upset of routine that’s making him stressed; it’s the fact that this is _creepy._ Dead silence and dull darkness in a room that should be loud and full of light. Dad finished up his whatever it was about half an hour ago – Josh got the text – so he should be watching TV and complaining to himself about whoever ‘Gary’ is and instead…

Josh takes a few careful, quiet steps toward the couch where Dad should be. The Sweet Voice helps him see a little bit, but the curtains are drawn against the moon, and the lights are out, and the only non-Black Mesa Bullshit source of illumination is the static on the TV. Like Dad _was_ watching something, but something. Something happened.

This is the opening of a fucking horror movie.

Josh creeps closer to the couch, quiet in the dark and feeling a little bit like he’s going to find the remnants of his Dad lying bleeding across the cushions because Josh wasn’t here, because Josh left, because Josh didn’t say _‘don’t die’_ before he left this afternoon.

Stop that.

Deep breaths.

What happens is what happens, and it’s nothing Josh saying two words can prevent.

Deep breaths.

What happens is what happens. Breathe.

Josh finally moves to where he can see the couch and— oh. Oh, god, it’s so much worse than he ever could have imagined. “hush,” Benrey hisses, near incoherently, looking up from where he was hunched over with glowing gray tracks down his face and _with Dad asleep in his lap._ Benrey has their hands in Dad’s hair in a way that suggests they’ve been combing it out for quite some time.

(Josh visited his other side of the family, last summer, and dad’s ex had sat down next to him on the porch in the mosquito-bitten evening and asked, “Has Gordon found anyone?” Josh blinked, looking away from the Bones and his little sister kicking up dirt and squealing gleefully, respectively. Well. Sadie was also kicking up dirt, but she was the only one squealing.

He set his drink down on the step next to his feet and signed, “Not another partner, I don’t think. Why?”

Dad’s ex had shrugged and taken another sip of his beer. “I just worry, y’know? Two decades is a long time to be alone, and he– I don’t know. Back in college, he was always doing his best not to be.” Josh frowned. There was some shit to be said about assuming that without a romantic relationship, someone would be unhappy, and some more shit to be said about the idea that Dad was the same person he was twenty years ago, but Josh didn’t say any of it. He watched Bones run across the yard, chased by Sadie with a hose, and took a drink of his beer. If Dad wanted to find a partner, Josh would be happy for him. If he didn’t, the same thing. It didn’t really matter.)

Josh just stares for a long moment. He is going to time travel to last summer and shake his past self by the shoulders for saying he’d be happy for Dad if he started dating again. What the fuck. Dad’s complained about his issues falling asleep in unfamiliar conditions since Josh was little and stubbornly sharing hotel beds with him when they went on vacation, citing (you guessed it!) Black Mesa Bullshit for making it something he couldn’t do unless he was exhausted and around someone he trusted to protect him. He can‘t seriously trust this bitchass R’lyeh reject enough to fall asleep on top of them. That’s not how the world works. “What—” Benrey shushes him. He’s _signing._ Josh is proud to announce that he’s homophobic now, and he’d commit a hate crime specifically at Benrey, but that’d probably wake Dad up. “No, you shush! What the fuck!” Benrey shrugs, wiping at the marks on his cheeks and smudging them onto his hoodie sleeve.

…wait, there’s glowing gray down their face. Is that– are those _tears?_ Sweet Voice tears? Jesus, what could have _happened?_ Dad only finished his work thirty minutes ago!

“wanna,” Benrey says after a second, voice shaky and rough and yep, yeah, they’ve been crying, holy fucking balls Josh can’t leave these two alone for _half an hour_ without shit unraveling, “wanna umm. play mario kart?”

Bubby said that xe and Coomer wanted Josh to hear the full story of what happened at Black Mesa from one of them or from Dad. But xe also said that Benrey would _know._ That xe thought Benrey might _tell him._ “Lemme get something to drink,” Josh says instead of a yes or no, and he gets the leftovers to put into the fridge on the way.

There’s tequila in the cabinet, and Josh grabs two glasses (and then, after some reconsideration and a minor balancing act, the whole bottle as well) before going back into the living room. Benrey blinks up at the glass Josh hands him, carefully reaching out for it without taking his other hand out of Dad’s hair. “you hate me,” he says. Not a question, not a fact, but maybe something like a reassurance.

Josh drains his own glass and then pours himself some more. “I don’t think I do. Don’t like you, though.” Benrey nods at this, seemingly comforted, and takes a cautious sip of their tequila. Josh resigns himself to sitting on the floor and turns on the Wii U, switching over the input and turning the volume as low as it can go so they won‘t wake Dad up. “I’ll give you the controller if you’ll tell me about Black Mesa,” Josh signs, and it’s probably fucked up of him to only care about answers in the face of a recently-crying person who Dad trusts and likes, but hey.

Just hey. End of defense. Josh doesn’t actually have anything.

Benrey’s eyes glow orange, like a faint smile, even as their face stays dull and tear-stained. “yeah, bro. twenty-one questions, rainbow road style. nice.” Josh passes the controller up to them, and they hold it carefully, like they’re worried about breaking it.

The Sweet Voice fades from the ceiling, and Benrey spits out more, keeping the room from going too dark. Dark yellow and pink, and the last time Josh saw it, Dad translated _don’t know what to think._ Josh doesn’t know either, really. He wins the first round and starts to ask _why did Dad kill you_ but. Look, that seems like a one-way trip to breakdown town at the moment, and even ignoring the fact that a breakdown wouldn’t give Josh the answers he needs, he isn’t an _asshole._ He’s curious and he doesn’t really care about Benrey, but that’s a line he’s not going to cross. It’s unnecessary. So instead, he turns around and signs up, “Do you know what happened to Dad’s arm?” 

Benrey flinches so hard Josh thinks maybe he should have asked about the murder.

Dad mumbles something and readjusts, his leg sliding off the couch and onto Josh's shoulders. Josh pushes the leg back up, and then looks to see if he should call off the questions entirely and go to bed and. Benrey has both hands gripped tight around their controller, staring down at Dad with wide, terrified eyes. And then he laughs. Sharp like the static on a screen. 

(When Josh was younger, sometimes he’d laugh instead of crying when he got hurt. The last time it happened, he was ten and climbing on a flimsy swing set that snapped under his weight. He had dropped to the ground and skinned his knees and elbows in the process. It had really hurt, and he had started laughing like crazy, not really able to stop even as his eyes welled up with tears at the pain. Wires got crossed in his brain or something. It hasn’t happened since then, but the memory comes back to him, now.)

Benrey still sounds raw when they say, “sold him out to the military ’n shit. it was uh. big pranks, classic—” his voice breaks— “classic benrey goofs. got his uh. arm. ohh, it’s DARK in here, ooughh, and then there was a lot uh. off. with the stabbing. didn’t tell ’em to.” His grin gets bigger, and there are eyes and eyes and eyes in the dark. They reflect the technicolor screen, but the orange glow is gone, replaced with white-speckled black like a starry night at the bottoms, like more tears about to spill. “it was um. funny jokes, bro. it was—”

“Fucked up,” Josh signs.

(A lot more of the story slots together when the fact that Benrey got Dad’s arm amputated comes into play. Josh feels kind of dumbly horrified, but Benrey is showing genuine emotion over this, and it looks a lot like a petrified regret. 

Two sides of the same coin. 

Ha.  
It’s not funny.  
Josh takes a shot.)

“…it was really fucked up. yeah.”

Josh has been looking for answers, for the full story, but he’s also understood that it wasn’t something he needed to know. And this isn’t really it. He’s got the same picture from different angles, but it’s been torn to shreds and gaps are still missing in ways that don’t line up. Why should they? The past isn’t made of puzzle pieces; it’s made of lies and missed opportunities and misremembering. “Yeah. Think it really fucked all of you up.” Benrey seems to get that this is the first time Josh has included them in the Science Team. Some of the eyes blink shut.

Benrey sucks at Mario Kart. Josh drinks a bit more to give them a fighting chance. He’s still in first place until Benrey gets a blue shell that, mechanically speaking, is fucking impossible to have, and they zoom past Josh to victory. Josh lets him have it. Benrey asks, “you a lil code boy? makin’ bots?” It’s not the weirdest thing they’ve said to him, not by far, but it still takes a second for Josh to parse it. 

“I’m making a Cleverbot,” he signs, hands a little sluggish in the air. Benrey blinks at him. Josh remembers that he made his own sign for Cleverbot and that there’s no way Benrey knows it, so he fingerspells it for them, which gets a slightly less confused blink. Josh explains, “It’s for, um. Like, chatting? You can boot it up and it’ll… it’ll try and talk like a real person, but no one wants to test it. They’re all too old. Y’know. ‘Fire is scary and Thomas Edison was a witch!’ But it’s just… dumb AI. Not even sentient. No one’s that good yet, but I’m… I’m especially not.” Benrey hums thoughtfully. Josh should wait to win again before he tries to get anything else out of him, but he cranes his neck up to look at Benrey and asks, “What’s up with Black Mesa and video games?”

Benrey looks away, face staying directed toward the screen but their eyes sliding off to the curtains over the window. “what’s up with this apartment and atoms,” they counter, near-silently. He sounds weird and sad about it. Like, _actually_ sad, not deflecting-sad or cartoonishly-sad, just… honest to god upset. _That’s_ worrying. Josh squints at him. “you gotta win, now. for that question. good fucking luck. gg.” Josh squints harder, and then gives up squinting in favor of raising the bottle to offer Benrey a top-up. They reach the glass down over Dad’s (snoring) head and accept it.

The screen reflects the different colors that Benrey keeps singing; he does it quietly so that Dad doesn’t wake up. Green and copper and white and magenta, things that Josh is trying to remember so he can ask Tommy, and then just giving up on remembering and snapping photos of them, especially when Dad mumbles something in his sleep and more gray shows up.

Josh wins.

(“you already got your question. sh.”  
“You didn’t give me a good answer, though. I should get to clarify, now that I won.”  
“sssshhhsh. shh.”)

Josh wins.

(“Wait wait wait, aren’t you a weird alien eldritch bullshit thing? Is– I mean, are you even getting drunk?”  
“huh? kinda. …no. alcohol doesn’t work on me.”  
“That’s gotta suck.”  
“nahhh, s’cool. desiggggnated driver. responsibubble.”  
“Okay, are you sure the alcohol isn’t working? ‘Cause you _sound_ drunk.”)

Benrey wins.

(“why’d you go to the shit school?”  
“Fuck off, Harvard’s a fucking– _Ivy League._ Dad’s just bitter because MIT sucks.”  
“cringe baby in the fail school.”  
“Shut up, Benrey.” (He almost uses a name sign, but catches himself and fingerspells it instead. You don’t give someone their own sign unless you expect them to stick around.) “You just think Harvard’s worse ‘cause Dad says so and you’re fucking whipped.”  
“…new game, please?”  
“Wow. Not even gonna deny it?”  
“NEW GAME, PLEASE?”)

Josh beats Benrey so badly that they throw the controller at the top of his head, and Josh laughs about making them rage quit fucking _Mario Kart._ “fucking. loser. shit baby. old shit baby,” Benrey grumbles, and Josh is definitely kinda wasted because he’s a lightweight, shut up about it, but he just won, so it’s his turn to ask a question.

He could ask for more details. New stitches for the old patchwork story. Another angle for the torn photograph. Instead, he slurs, “Do you _wanna_ be part of my family?” Josh frowns at his hands when ‘family’ comes out more like two F’s smushed together. Josh might be more than _kinda_ wasted, actually. Whoops. Benrey doesn’t seem to understand what Josh is even saying, at this point, which! Is fair! But this is– this is important, actually. Because Tommy wanted them to be a part of the team immediately, and Dad, too, and Coomer was just kinda okay with whatever, and only Bubby really seemed annoyed about it. So Josh needs to ask because _xe_ didn’t want him, but maybe xe’s come around. And doesn’t hate him nearly as much anymore, after tonight. _But,_ but, um, but that doesn’t matter if Benrey doesn’t even wanna be included. Like, he’s spent a lot of time trying to piss everyone off, so it’s a… Josh is valid. _“Fam…ily,”_ he repeats carefully, getting his phonetics right, and then looks up at them quizzically.

Benrey’s eyes widen and glow with recognition. And then they sing a too-bright-to-look-at string of high-pitched pink and green, and it makes Josh flinch back. “Th’ fuck?” Dad asks sleepily, shuffling a bit, and then sitting up.

“Nice one, dickhead,” Jost signs at Benrey, who claps a hand over their mouth and swats away the Sweet Voice.

Dad squints at the lights and mumbles, “What’s… god, Sunkist never did this; I need to call Tommy or something.”

“no you don’t. s’a dream. you’re dreaming. beddy brain.”

Josh stands up (and does not wobble, okay, he’s all good. He’s going to get a plastic cup of water instead of a glass one for. To thwart Big Glass. That’s a government oligarchy thing, right? Big Glass? Yeah) and signs, “I’m not homophobic anymore, just tell me about video games in the morning,” and then doesn’t ask about why Dad or Benrey is laughing. They just kinda laugh at shit a lot. It’s not Josh’s business, and he’s not gonna snoop. Any more than he’s already snooped. He’s already snooped a lot, so he’s done, now. Mmhm. Wow, his head’s gonna be killing him tomorrow, huh?

… 

Shit.

Josh was gonna ask about the murder.

Eh. S’fine. Case isn’t getting any colder.

Get it? ‘Cause it’s winter? And winter’s cold?

Look. S’okay. Josh knows he’s funny; he doesn’t need others’ approval. He laughs to himself all the way through the hall, and he keeps laughing right up until his head hits his pillow and he passes out. Joshua Comedygenius Freeman.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gray: I lied. you're not getting this one yet. chapter after next, sorry  
> green and copper and white and magenta: _green to copper like a penny means that it's game time for benny_ / _mauve to white means 'the kids are alright'_  
>  white-speckled black like a starry night at the bottoms, like more tears about to spill: _black and white like a night that's starry means that I'm so very sorry_  
>  a too-bright-to-look-at string of high-pitched pink and green: _rose to pine means I don't want to fuck it up, this time_


	5. +dmg (poison)

_Joshua Camille Freeman is going to stab the inventor of tequila between the eyes._


	6. !psay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "you. uh. your kid's." Gordon turns over his shoulder and arches an eyebrow in a warning, but Benrey – staring very hard at their quarter as they flick it up in the air – doesn't notice. "he's a pretty epic gamer," he mumbles after a second, which is the closest thing to a sincere compliment that Gordon has ever heard from him.
> 
> "He's _crazy_ good at Mario Kart, right? It was all he'd play after he watched Tron – getting sucked into any other video game was too scary for him, so he's had practice." They look up from their coin with a grin with the mention of Josh being scared of being in a video game, and Gordon laughs. "I know."
> 
> Benrey's coin goes _ting!_ as he flips it again. "think you should tell him, prolly. kid's got questions."
> 
> "I know," Gordon says again, quieter.
> 
> "he uhhh takes after his. dad." The other eyebrow raises, but Benrey's gone back to not looking at him. "smart, 'n shit. should, uh. have people to. people 'round to help him, when he needs." Oh. Oh, they're being– nice? That's… Gordon thinks he almost hears an apology, and it's. Something. "needs to fucking shave." There it is. Gordon rolls his eyes fondly and flips Benrey's charred blueberry pancake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I looked at the word count and it hurt me. good news: I'm aboiut to hurt _you,_ so I think that balances out. but in all seriousness, this one is uh. it's a Doozy. 0 - 100 real quick, be mindful of warnings and be careful
> 
>  **warnings for:**  
>  -throwing up (not graphic)  
> -hangovers  
> -the worst word in the english language (d*lf)  
> -awkward family dinners  
>  **-extreme emotional distress  
>  -heavily implied mind-fuckery  
> -unreality (worse than chapter 4 by A Lot)**  
> -minor violence (josh does a hit)  
> -running away from problems

After a good fifteen minutes feeling sorry for himself, not to mention vaguely nauseous, Josh opens his phone – still at forty percent battery, so he won’t need to charge it for a bit – and winces when he sees the messages he sent last night. The messages he has only vague, foggy memories of sending last night.

joshua: TOMMY tomy tommy whats gray sweetvoice thers SO MCUH of it  
joshua: lpok  
joshua: [img]  
_the cool uncle: Huh! That gray looks like it’s the same color as the wing of a dove! Was it attached to any other colors?_  
joshua: idk Im to busy ebing homeophbic  
_the cool uncle: ...Joshua, I think you need to drink some water._

_the cool uncle: Joshua?_

Josh groans. (It hurts his throat. Fuck.) The light of his screen is not doing wonders for his headache, but it _is_ helping him wake up some. Actually, that’s just two bad things. Ugh.

joshua: morning tommy, I’m in hell  
_the cool uncle: Good morning, Joshua!! I’m not surprised! Did you drink any water?_  
joshua: a little  
joshua: wait  
joshua: dad said that a lot of the sweet voice translations  
joshua: rhymed  
_the cool uncle: Yeah? :)_  
joshua: “wing of a dove”  
_the cool uncle: Yeah !_  
joshua: that isn’t one of the rhyming translations right

Tommy types like he talks. He starts and stops and corrects himself, which means that Josh will be waiting a while to get an answer. He represses the urge to groan again, louder, and smashes his face into his pillow for a brief scream instead (which also hurts his throat, shocker, but a different part, so that’s all fine) before adding,

joshua: please, tommy, Im so hungover that Im reevaluating my hatred of benrey  
joshua: give me some good news. I need it.  
_the cool uncle: It rhymes! Also, is that Mr. Freeman lying on Benrey in that picture?_  
joshua: Im going to throw up.  
_the cool uncle: Tell Benrey and Mr. Freeman congratulations!_  
joshua: I will do no such fucking thing  
joshua: also, Im changing ur contact name  
_soda bastard: :(_

Josh does, in fact, throw up, but not because he has to deal with the new knowledge that Benrey’s weird thing with Dad is love. Josh is actually– hm. Saying he’s happy about it is a stretch, and saying that he trusts Dad’s judgment on this is even more of one, but. Josh doesn’t know. Drinking half a bottle of tequila with them, seeing how careful they were with his dad, and getting at least one burning question answered has made him dislike them less. It also made him violently hungover, but such is the price of knowledge sometimes. Ribs can attest to this: she once dragged him to a computer science seminar while drunk off his ass, and it made him change his fucking major and find a course in life that he’s actually enjoying. Hangovers are just worth it, sometimes.

Josh vomits again.

He’s not sure if this is one of those times, yet.

When Josh leaves the bathroom – his mouth minty fresh like he was expecting toothpaste to do anything about the faint scratchy feeling residing in the back of his throat – Dad is cooking breakfast, and Benrey is sitting politely at the table, flipping a coin. It’s still pretty early, especially for how late last night was, and there are pancakes, still steaming, stacked up on a tray next to the stove where Dad’s scrambling some eggs. “physics engine broke,” Benrey mentions offhandedly. Probably about his weird coin, again. Dad snorts. “you gonna um, fix ‘em? physics man? get your fancy dock-trate out to fix my coin?” Josh takes a step closer to the kitchen but doesn’t leave the hallway yet. Dad’s still standing at the stove with his back turned, and Josh wants to see if he can connect to the speaker on top of the fridge without Dad or Benrey noticing his presence. He can only do it if he has something good to announce himself, though, so he has to sit here and wait for an opportune moment without getting noticed. Super Spy Shenanigans.

(Name’s Freeman. _Josh_ Freeman.)

(Does this make Ribs a Bond G– no, no, if he’s bringing Ribs into the theoretical Super Spy Shenanigans, Josh is the Bond Girl. Oh, well.)

Dad interrupts Josh’s train of thought before he can get so focused on what he would have to bribe Ribs with to get her into a tux (it would definitely involve blasting Temporary Secretary loud enough that she could feel it, but it would take more than that and Josh is honestly a little frightened to think of what exactly that more would be) that he entirely wastes this golden opportunity. “I think that’s all theoretical probability. If you don’t like it, you can take it up with Tommy’s dad.” Josh blinks. He didn’t know Tommy had a dad. Or– okay, that’s kind of stupid, a lot of people have dads, but Josh didn’t know Tommy’s dad was _around._ How come he’s never met him?

Benrey’s head tilts. Josh can’t see what face they’re making because their back is to him, but he’s willing to bet it’s a scowl. “he didn’t give me playstaytion plus. cringe dil—” Josh has to put the hand not holding his phone over his mouth to muffle a hysterical and disgusted snort of laughter— “…nnnnnno.”

Dad stops moving the eggs around in the pan, and his shoulders raise up to his ears. “Oh my god.” He sounds only half-there, shaky with almost-realized laughter that he’s clearly trying very hard to suppress.

“shut up. i didn’t say anything. shhhhhhhshh. sh.” Josh can hear the blush. He can _also_ hear, disguised by the shushing, the tell-tale _be-doop!_ of the bluetooth connecting.

The laughter stops being restrained, and Dad drops the spatula into the pan so he can lean on the counter and wheeze, “Were you about to call Tommy’s dad a _dilf?_ What the fuck is wrong with you?” _The opportune moment has been fucking spotted._ Josh’s frantic typing is covered by the sound of Benrey smacking his lips loudly and obnoxiously, poorly hiding how embarrassed he is.

Josh hits _Speak_ as he walks into the kitchen and takes a seat next to Benrey at the table and, in an accidental addition to the fantastic scene that’s been set for him, the speaker has its volume all the way up. Meaning it is with incredible, ear-shattering loudness that Josh’s sin of a TTS program rings out, “It’s because I told him to stop calling you one, so now he uses it as a synonym. Pass me a pancake?” Josh wishes he could stop time, right here, just to savor the solid inch that both Dad and Benrey jump at the first blare of the speaker. And then, half a second later, Josh wishes he could stop time to relish the face that Benrey makes when he realizes that, _oopsie daises bitch,_ Josh is _not_ above telling Dad about Benrey calling him a dilf enough times that Josh had to put a permanent ban on the word. Dad crumples down to his elbow, cackling, and Benrey’s frozen horror melts into a very plain threat as he looks over at Josh like they’re the monster in a horror movie and he’s a cheerleader. Josh grins. “Bitch,” he signs politely.

* * *

The entire science team is having dinner together for the last three nights of Josh’s stay back home. Darnold and Dr. Coomer are in charge of cooking, and Josh is stubbornly shooed back into the living room when he tries to help. Apparently, the next couple of days are For Him, but Josh is pretty sure they just don’t trust him with cooking since he accidentally left the tin foil cover on some pot roast he was reheating and melted the microwave. The fire alarm for the apartment didn’t even go off! Both of them have had way worse culinary mishaps! (Does turning someone’s amputated arm into a minigun count as a culinary mishap? Josh is counting it as one, if only for the sake of argument because he’s mean like that.) Josh has watched Dr. Coomer eat things that even Benrey would turn their nose up at, so he has absolutely no place to shoo Josh out of the kitchen.

Tommy pats him consolingly on the shoulder. Josh huffs.

Dinner is wonderful, though Josh makes a point of talking about how his help could have made it better, which makes Benrey ask why _Josh_ is allowed to speak with his mouth full, which leads to an incomprehensible (but amusing) argument between Bubby, Dad, and Benrey that the rest of the team watches like a ping-pong game. It’s off-the-walls batshit, and Josh chews around a smile.

The argument clears up eventually, Bubby having apparently won (the point of debate has warped so incomprehensibly that Josh doesn’t even know what it is or how it got there from _‘signing_ with your mouth full is okay, _speaking_ is not’) and being a real dick about it. And then Tommy clears his throat and looks pointedly at Dad, who sucks in a deep breath and then sighs even deeper. Josh immediately snaps to full alert and looks around the table. Sure enough, everyone is sitting up straight and looking at him with facial expressions ranging from ‘concerned’ to ‘grave.’ Josh signs, “Holy shit, who died?”

Dad sits back a little, looking surprised. “What? Nobody! Why would you think someone died?”

Josh raises his eyebrows incredulously and gestures at the way everyone is sitting and also how they’re all looking at him. “Something has happened that everyone knows about but hasn’t told me yet! It’s either a funeral or a wedding, and if no one’s died, then congrats, you two.” He’s looking at Bubby and Coomer for that last bit, but Bubby snorts and rolls xir eyes.

“Nobody’s getting married, dipshit. I don’t trust Dr. Coomer with the sanctity of marriage.”

Cheerfully, Dr. Coomer adds, “The government won’t legally allow me any more of them!” Josh brings his hands up, decides he doesn’t care, thinks about it for more than half a nanosecond and decides that he _does,_ actually, but should probably wait for later. When he’s not about to find out one of his extended family members has died. “I believe we’re having a discussion about my thought experiment, Joshua.” Josh squints.

Thought—?

Oh! Oh, right, the video game bullshit. He had been planning to ask Benrey about it, and then tequila happened, and _then_ he’d been so busy packing his shit up and planning the flight back to school that he’d forgotten to bug Dad about it, too. 

Josh. 

Should not have forgotten about it that easily. 

His memory is usually pretty good for things like that, especially when he’s been mildly obsessed with it for the past three weeks. That’s– weird. Packing wasn’t even that intensive or stressful, and Benrey talks about video games and shit all the time, so they should have said _something_ that would have set Josh’s brain down the track and reminded him to ask Dad about it. How did he not remember at all? That’s _really—_ Dad sets his hands down on the table within Josh’s reach, palms up. Grounding handhold. Uh oh. Josh blinks, very slowly, and then reaches out and curls their fingers together. He’s just gonna… trust that if this weren’t important, then Dad wouldn’t risk setting him off. What happens is what happens, and Josh just needs to breathe, and Dad’ll be here to keep him calm. Keep him grounded. “I’m not asking to make you feel dumb,” Dad starts, “because you not noticing is– kind of the point?” Josh nods. Dad sighs.

(Josh squeezes his hands. He knows Dad can only feel it in one of them, but the motion still gets him a shaky smile.)

“What do you remember from before the Resonance Cascade?” Dad asks. He doesn’t let go of Josh’s hands, so this is a rhetorical question. Alright. What does Josh remember from before the ResCas? Not much. He was like four, so it wasn’t necessary– that’s– okay, memories aren’t something that can be described as “unnecessary.” Weird internal slip-up. It’s just that they’re blurry, more vague impression than actual recollection. He remembers… he knows he loved Dad more than pretty much anything. Dad said that he watched the cowboy episode of Backyardigans religiously, and Josh doesn’t actually _remember_ that, but he thinks it counts. Dad looks at him, cautious as anything, and Josh gets the feeling that whatever is supposed to be happening here, it hasn’t happened yet. Dad must get that too, because he asks, “Have you noticed anything different from normal when you’re home?” Josh snorts at that and looks over at the various members of the Science Team, and then back to Dad, eyebrow raised incredulously. Dad doesn’t laugh.

(There’s this scene in suspenseful horror stories, the kind that Josh would read in high school English, where the protagonist doesn’t know what’s happening, but everyone else does, and their jokes fall flat with the person or people who are about to do something awful. Josh doesn’t think of himself as a protagonist, and he knows that his family would never hurt him, but that’s what his mind goes to when no one laughs with him, and his smile slides awkwardly off his face.)

Okay, focus. Think about the answers. Is there anything different from normal when Josh is home? Other than the Science Team, Josh can’t think of anything, and the Science Team is just like that because of Black Mesa. Black Mesa made Bubby, and Coomer worked there for years, and Tommy– Tommy worked there too, probably for a long time, which means that they have their explanations. So what’s different that doesn’t have a cause—?

It hits him: he’s _luckier._

It’s not something he’s looked into because how could he? Luck isn’t something you can quantify; it’s all variations and subjectivity. And besides that, whenever something like that makes him realize the extent of his good fortune (whenever something goes just perfectly, whenever Josh is spared something embarrassing or mundane by luck that had a one in a million chance of happening the way it did, which happens _way too often)_ he thinks, “huh, that was weird” and then stops thinking about it. Things just work out when Josh is home.

Suspiciously perfect. Except then, he forgets to be suspicious.

Like how he forgot to ask about the video games.

Like how he forgot how strange it was for Coomer to randomly turn grave and ask what Josh would do if he were living inside of one.

Dad squeezes his hands lightly, and Josh blinks up at him. Dad’s smiling now, but it looks worried. “Does your bot know it is one?” Dad asks softly. “If you could make it a smart AI, would you let it know?” Josh has an AI? Josh is an– Josh has an AI, right. His Cleverbot. It– it talks to people, but it’s just a dumb AI. It isn’t sentient or self-aware.

No. Stop. Go back. Slip of the mental tongue, pay attention, don’t forget.

‘Josh is an.’ Where did that come from?

It’s unnecessary; he doesn’t need to—

No, that’s not– not how that _works,_ thoughts don’t get _categorized_ into ‘necessary’ and ‘unnecessary.’ Why did he think that? Why did he almost forget he did?

_(“What would you do if one day you woke up and realized everything around you was fake? If you looked at the world around you and finally understood that it was made of pixels, and that you were just… coding, designed to assist and provide a motive to someone important to you. And they wore pixels like you, but were truly from outside of the game.”)_

Dad gives him another sad smile like he’s sorry that Josh has worked it out, but so, _so_ proud. Proud of what? What has Josh done? He’s an– he’s thinking about video games, he can’t remember, Josh has an AI, Josh is an—?

_(“What’s up with Black Mesa and video games?”_  
_“what’s up with this apartment and atoms?”)_

Josh stands up, steps back, and Dad’s face creases with worry. Josh can hear, faintly, beneath the blood pounding in his ears, the sounds of the rest of the Science Team saying warm, blank, comforting things. The letters and syllables of it blend together.

_(“So, if I ask Dad about what he would… do if he were in a video game?”_  
_“Ask him what he did when he w– no, that’s too much information.”)_

Josh has seen them respawn. Seen his family clipping through walls. The probability of the world is simplistic and broken like it can only run so realistically before his life overheats and crashes.

(Ask Dad what he did when he was in a video game. _Josh is an AI.)_

“Hey,” Dad starts. Gentle and worried and warm. Familiar. _Artificial._ “Hey, look at me– look at me, we’re not in the game anymore; this is the epilogue. We’re free to do what we want. I’m not the player anymore—” Josh stumbles back further, and he looks up, looks into his dad’s face – twenty-four years, and he’s never looked that closely at his own father? – and Dad’s glasses are blank. Like. Like a headset. Like a placeholder. Dad – _wore pixels like you but were truly from outside of the game –_ must see him notice because he winces. (The empty black glass vanishes in a shift of the light, and it’s his dad again, normal, human, artificial, not real.) Stepping closer, putting his hand on Josh’s shoulder so Josh can feel the fake warmth of it, he says, “Joshie—”

Josh flails, fight and flight and _artificial_ and his palm connects with Dad’s nose.

Dad jerks away, dropping Josh’s shoulder in favor of holding his own face. He swears, nasal and pained, and Josh can see red blood hitting Coomer and Bubby’s oakwood dining room floor. Hyperreal. Not real at all. The room is too loud even under Josh’s frantic heartbeat and his adrenaline is through the roof and he can’t breathe and what happens– what happens is programmed. It’s all programmed. Artificial.

Josh slams out the back door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so uh gray like the wing of a dove means _I think I'm in love_ in case you were still wondering, um. sure that's. what's on your mind after this chapter.
> 
> several commenters: I hope josh gets some clear answers!  
> me, sitting on this: ...are you _sure—_
> 
> the next chapter should be out by thursday; see you folks then!! sorry!!!!


	7. DESPITE EVERYTHING, IT'S STILL YOU.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Shut," Gordon spits, "the _fuck_ up, Benrey." Just like old times. (Benrey should, uh, jump on that. Pick at the scab 'til it bleeds. Make Gordon– make Feetman punch him. Make him mad. Beat the game.) Benrey puts a hand on Gordon's human-wrist and tries to say something, anything, but Gordon flinches back and then he gives them a look so desperately angry and afraid that they stop trying. "This was _your_ idea," and it's like he shot Benrey yesterday. (No talk him, he angy.) He's so fucking transparently (trans parent, ha) stressed and worried about his _son,_ who's so much like him it's like a cracked window to the past. Benrey's worried about both of them.
> 
> Sullen and cold: "just wanted to help." Exactly like he talked in Black Mesa and Gordon is bleeding and angry and it's _just_ like old times.
> 
> "Get the fuck out," Gordon snaps the second they've stopped talking. (Quick jokes, fast punchlines, gotta be snappy to be funny. All in the…
> 
> …timing.
> 
> Haha, good joke. All jokes. Gordon is frightened and furious and hating Benrey, so Benrey beat the game! Good jokes, big bad. Good job.)
> 
> Benrey gets the fuck out before Gordon can tell him twice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello again don't worry: everything is Fine. sorry this chapter is a little bit shorter, but this just seemed like a Nice Splitting Point so here we are!
> 
>  **warnings for:**  
>  -continued unreality  
> -existentialism  
> -emotional breakdowns  
> -josh sitting outside in the middle of january in a t-shirt. yeah its new mexico but Shit's Cold  
> -reference to coomer's Clone Hell plan  
> -a good dose of millenial nihilism, as opposed to josh's expected gen z nihilism  
> -worry about being paternally catfished (this is a serious thing but I have no idea how the fuck else to phrase it)  
> -dr coomer-typical Sir Please Say Words In A Way That Isn't _That_  
>  -fraudulent lifetime movies

Joshua C. Freeman is an artificial intelligence, and he doesn’t know how to cope with that. 

Josh—

Josh just.

He sits. 

He sits against the house that isn’t real, in the backyard that isn’t real, crying tears that aren’t real into hands that aren’t real. He– he has to be a person, he _has_ to be. But. Things don’t work like they should. His _family_ doesn’t work like it should. People don’t die and then come back, not like– god, how didn’t he _know?_

Josh is cold.  
The cold isn’t real.  
He’s still shivering.

His hands feel glued to his face as he sobs, the tears only hot for a second before the world chills them, and they freeze between his fingers. Some small part of his brain, the part that had insisted Josh start packing and planning his flight back to Harvard, adds petulantly that all of this means his degree is going to be fucking useless. Josh laughs at that even as more tears fall because he’s a fucking _artifical intelligence_ trying to get a masters in _computer sciences._ Christ. The programmer must have a sense of humor.

Dr. Coomer’s button-up rustles against the outer brick wall of the house as he sits down next to Josh. Josh’s teeth chatter from cold, but Coomer doesn’t seem to feel it through the thin blue fabric. The night is quiet except for the howl of the frigid wind, cricket sounds (god, are they even there? Do they exist until Josh goes looking for them? Shouldn’t they be frozen by now?) and Josh’s own muffled crying. They sit there, for a long time, until Dr. Coomer finally says, “If it’s any consolation, Joshua, you’ve taken the news much better than the rest of us did!” Josh finally moves his hands off of his face, blinking up at the doctor and sniffling miserably.

His hands are shaking a little, with leftover adrenaline and with horror and with cold, but he manages, “…I hit Dad in the face and gave him a bloody nose.”

Dr. Coomer smiles wide and pats him on the shoulder. Josh can feel it, but he can feel the freezing tears on his face and the bite of the cold, stiffening his knuckles, so he’s not sure it matters. “We took the news _very_ badly!”

Josh shifts so that he can rest his elbows on his knees and then hide his face like that. It helps him feel marginally less frozen. Something warm drapes across his shoulders, and when he looks up again, Coomer is patting at the jacket to make sure it’s giving Josh as much respite from the wind as it can. Josh shuffles away from the wall a little so he can actually put it on and tucks his arms into the sleeves while he’s at it. “Thanks,” he signs to the fence and not to Coomer, before using that hand to wipe at his face again.

Coomer is staring at him. Josh can only barely see him, tear-blurred and out of focus, but he can feel the eyes on the side of his face, so he tucks that face back into his elbows and ignores the feeling. There’s more quiet (the crickets are still going. If Josh focuses, he can hear where the sound stops and then cycles back to the beginning. A looping track. How hadn’t he noticed?) before Coomer asks, “The stars are beautiful, are they not?” Josh laughs at that, derisive and croaking and wet. His hands are cold, but he wouldn’t bother with a response even if they weren’t. Coomer just hums, quiet and pleased. Josh can’t feel the eyes on him anymore, so he assumes Coomer is actually looking at the sky. “You know, I jumped through the sky, once.” Josh sighs, though it comes out more of a wobbly exhale, and looks over at the old man with his tear-stained, snotty face, and gives Coomer the most unimpressed look he can manage. Coomer just smiles at him because, of course, he does.

(The stories make more sense, now that Josh understands that they were the plot of a game. Of course, Coomer punched out a shark. Of course, the army tried to kill his family, and they wiped out the entire military instead. They’re the heroes. _Dad’s_ the hero. Josh is an end screen and maybe a flashback, just motivation to draw a player into the fake little world that could be turned on and off for their amusement. 

Josh can’t help the fresh sob that wracks his chest, can’t help the cold that makes his teeth chatter anew, and he accidentally bites his tongue. Take that, luck. Now Josh is in physical pain as well as existential emotional pain. Screw you.)

Coomer continues, “I got through to the other side. Fell out of the skybox entirely, in fact! There was just… nothingness. It broke through my coding, and it also broke my sense of self! What was worth doing, when none of it mattered outside of our false bubble poorly simulating real, human life?” Josh glares. If Coomer is trying to be helpful, he’s doing a terrible fucking job. “Well. First, I tried to peel your father and wear him as a skin puppet to get to the ‘Real World,’ but Tommy is Crack Shot, and I simply gave up on that option. He killed seventy of my clones in less than five minutes. It was very impressive!” Josh leans his head back against the wall and decides to just. Let the words happen. He doesn’t care about the story. He doesn’t _care_ about Black Mesa because it was all a fucking _game,_ so who gave a shit about what happened during it? Plot points and shooting and– and monsters and aliens and boss battles. Josh can fill in the blanks. Whatever. And now here’s the heroes’ epilogue, except they have to deal with the trauma that came from all that, and Josh is just an NPC who has to deal with it, too. Dr. Coomer puts his hand on Josh’s shoulder again, and his thumb moves on comforting circles that are just a little too perfect for Josh to believe they could be the product of something living. “Your father had quite the crisis when the events of the game concluded,” he says quietly.

(Josh doesn’t think he’s heard Dr. Coomer be quiet since he was _eleven._ If– if he was eleven. He was, right? That wasn’t programmed in? No, Josh has actual memories of being eleven. It was after the ResCas. After the game.)

Josh turns to look at Coomer. “He had been controlled by the player, moving through Black Mesa, and now that control was suddenly gone! It was a serious adjustment.” Josh… thinks he remembers that, actually. Dad was quieter than Josh remembered, clumsier, and more forgetful in a way that had gotten explained to him as _Daddy just had some scary things happen to him, so he’s getting used to not being scared_ in between helping his Dad with physical therapy. He remembers Dad spacing out in the middle of conversations and tasks. Almost… almost like he was waiting for someone to take the reins from him and push him through the words or the motions.

Josh slurs, “That’s really Dad?” There are a hundred more important things, a thousand, a million, but they can wait because _this_ is what Josh needs to know right now. That the man who still sleeps with a sheriff's star night light and holds Josh’s hands and makes pancakes and tells stupid jokes is whole, concrete, and not just a light projection like everything else. If Josh can be called a person, if he counts as an _individual,_ then he needs to know: please, is his Dad a person, too?

Dr. Coomer’s smile reaches his eyes when he says, “It’s really him.” Josh swallows hard, and the biting cold of the air in his throat is soothed for just a second. “And you’re really _you,_ Joshua! Who you are and what you do… well, that’s all influenced by Real Choices that you have made and that we have made as the people helping to raise and support you! Just like a boy made of flesh and blood, you are more than the sum of your parts. You are so much more than the paths that life, and programming, may or may not have set out for you, Joshua.” Josh sniffles, and then he leans his head on Coomer’s shoulder. It’s nice. The crickets are mostly drowned out by the wind, but Josh can hear them, and he can see the trees moving in the wind, and he can feel Coomer putting his arm over Josh’s shoulders as another small comfort. None of it’s real, but it’s all _right there,_ so Josh isn’t sure that matters.

Joshua C. Freeman is an artificial intelligence, and he turns his snotty, windburned face to the frozen heavens, sparkling with more stars than there are questions in Josh’s head. (That might sound obvious, but Josh has a _lot_ of questions; the sky should be proud of itself.) The Coomer-Bubby household is in the suburbs, near the part of the city where Dad’s apartment is, so there should be light pollution stretching out and obscuring the stars. There isn’t. Josh thinks he’s pointed this out before and then forgotten afterward every time, but he’s glad it never got patched up. He likes being able to look up and see this many tiny pinpricks of far-away nuclear reactions, chemically burning out. Or– not, because they’re actually just graphics on a hard drive somewhere, but– but Josh has to take solace where he can. They’re good graphics, at the very least.

Coomer clears his throat and then, in his Lecture Voice, begins to recite. Josh knows it’s a bid to make him go inside, but he’s going to stay out here just a little bit longer. “Cold is the presence of low temperature, especially in the atmosphere. In common usage, cold is often a subjective perception. A lower bound to temperature is absolute zero,” Coomer says, and Josh gives another wet, croaky laugh. Not because anything’s especially funny, but because it’s that or have another breakdown, and he’s too damn cold to spend _two_ hours out here sobbing. Also, he’d probably get dehydrated. Coomer rubs Josh’s shoulder even as he keeps talking, and Josh can’t help but smile, even if it’s shaken. When Coomer is three paragraphs deep into describing the symptoms of hypothermia, Josh finally waves him off. Coomer, miraculously, lets himself be waved off. Josh wipes away a frozen and salt-crusted tear off of his cheek with his jacket sleeve.

“Thanks,” Josh signs because… because what else is he supposed to say? “Dr. Coomer– thank you.”

Dr. Coomer squeezes his shoulder, and it is, as always, just a _little_ too tight not to feel kind of like a threat, but Josh is long past used to it. “Of course, Joshua. Now, let’s get you back inside – we wouldn’t want to catch our death of colds out here!” Josh nods, and he can’t find a smile, but he can fix his feet one at a time, one in front of the other, and when he finally steps back inside, the heating settles into his bones immediately. Coomer’s arm doesn’t move from its place around his shoulders (it has to stretch to do so, and the bio-plastic is weirdly light, but it’s still nice) as he guides Josh into the living room, where the rest of his family is sitting around and looking worried. “Not to worry, gentlemen! I explained the deeply traumatic experience of falling out of the world, and now young Joshua is feeling Totally Fine And Normal, again!” Josh doesn’t laugh because hearing that, even without too much detail, is a _little horrifying and not helping,_ but he does manage a huff of air, fond of how terrible that attempt at comfort sounds. It was, surprisingly, decent comfort, but when Coomer says it like _that—_

Dad jumps up off of the couch (and away from Bubby, _who had xir hand covering his where it was placed on xir shoulder for support,_ which is such a disarmingly open display of affection for xir that Josh almost trips over his own feet) and snaps, “You did fucking _what?_ Dr. Coomer, you can’t just– you can’t just _say shit_ like that after– after we– I-I-I went and fucking told him—” Oh, Dad’s hit the ‘pissed off sputtering’ stage of stress. Josh starts to feel guilty about that, remembers that he just learned his whole life is technically a lie and should probably put his own feelings first for a bit while he deals with that revelation, and then feels guilty anyway. 

Deep breaths.

Josh walks over to the couch and sits down on the end away from Bubby, tilting his head to ask Dad to sit back down where he was, in between them. Dad does so in half a second, his face all twisted up with guilt and worry and anger, and Josh leans against him like he did when he was little, and one of them had just had a nightmare and didn’t want to be alone. “Can we just watch a shitty movie, and fall asleep in here, tonight?” Josh signs, all the fight and fear drained out of him, and he feels… very small, asking that. Like a little boy, pleading for Daddy to stay in the room until Josh fell asleep, and for Daddy not to leave again, and if he could give Daddy his Sherriff Star Night Light – the most important thing in the world when Josh was a kid – so that the bad dreams would go away.

Bubby scoffs, and Josh shrinks in on himself, hand up in a fist to say _sorry,_ when Bubby leans over the couch and grabs at the remote, turning the TV on. “Obviously, we can do that. Shitty movie like Shrek 2 or shitty movie like Birdemic?”

“Shrek 2,” Joshua signs haughtily, ignoring the fact that his face is blotchy and still kind of wet and definitely gross, “is the best film ever created.”

Darnold pipes up, “Re-Animator?”

“I want _shitty_ movies, damn you.”

Dad, with his prosthetic, reaches over Josh and snatches the remote before slowly picking his way across the on-screen keyboard and searching, _Lifetime._ Josh smiles at that, just a little, because they’ve definitely made a habit of mocking those things when one of them needs a pick-me-up, and a Lifetime movie sounds perfect. Something something, apples not falling far from trees. Dad’s left hand is resting, palm-up, on his knee, and Josh reaches over and curls their fingers together. Dad squeezes a little, and Josh squeezes back. It’s okay. He’ll be okay. They’ll all be okay.

There are not, unfortunately, any Lifetime movies about cowboys, (Josh’s comfort media was established young, alright? If it ain’t broke, etcetera) but Tommy does some googling and finds one about an obsessive horse girl trying to date (marry? Have sex with? Kill? It’s unclear) a lawyer because he’s from Texas. It’s such a _weirdly specific_ reason to stalk someone that Josh picks it about halfway through the summary Tommy’s reading off. The movie is heart-wrenchingly, mind-numbingly, incredibly fucking awful — which is to say: it’s perfect.

Josh falls asleep on Dad’s shoulder (about two seconds after drowsily scolding him into taking off his prosthetic because if he falls asleep wearing it, he’ll ache in the morning and then spend all day complaining) drooling into his shirt. The rest of the Science team has packed onto the couch, meaning that Josh’s legs are sprawling over Coomer’s, and he’s half an inch to the right of basically sitting on Tommy. This is hardly the first time the Science Team (and Josh) have had a massive sleepover, so it’s not too surprising that they all conk out pretty quickly.

Joshua C. Freeman is an artificial intelligence, surrounded by other programmed people like him. He is warm and, while maybe not _happy,_ content. None of this is real. Josh shifts in his sleep, and his hands twitch as if he’s having a very passionate argument inside his head. None of this is real, and Joshua sleeps and dreams and takes long, steady breaths, and he does not care.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here, see? it's all good. soft shit. don't worry about where benrey went, we'll get to that. also, I'm sorry to say it, but the lifetime movie described does not actually exist. or, if it does, that is one hell of a coincidence because I made all of that up on the spot.
> 
> also, I just finished the epilogue, so we're going back to three-day-apart updates!! see you guys friday!


	8. R(Reload)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gordon wakes up to his son smacking him in the face with his own prosthetic. In a perfect world, this is not a common occurrence. Gman's gotten the epilogue pretty close to perfect, but he doesn't have any control over the self-aware AI, meaning that Josh is now 100% free to do whatever he wants. Before last night, he was only 85% free to do whatever he wanted, which is still a lot, which is why myoelectric-to-the-nose is how Gordon usually gets woken up by his wonderful firstborn son whom he loves very much. "Fhhg," Gordon says.
> 
> Josh drops the arm onto Gordon's stomach and asks, "What the fuck is up with Forzen?"
> 
> Gordon squints at him. "Nng?"
> 
> Josh pauses. After a few tentative seconds of looking around the room and then back at Gordon's deeply tired and fuzzily confused face, he signs, "Coffee?" Ah, Gordon's raised the kid well.
> 
> "Coffee," he agrees, sitting up. Josh nods and turns to the kitchen, and after a bit, Gordon hears the faint click of the coffeemaker turning on. Time to get up, he supposes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> friends. foes. Folks, at large: I am the biggest jack in this o'lantern patch. this fic is due to update Every Three Days, which means on monday when I intended for this chapter to be up In Three Days, I counted one (tuesday) two (wednesday) three (thursday) and then said Hm. That Means Friday.
> 
> it's not. 
> 
> three days from monday would be thursday. 
> 
> I am Brilliant. my brain is so wrinkled even fat hairless cats are amazed. the cube I'm supposed to be calculating for the math homework I've been ignoring for the past six hours has nothing on the sheer amount of surface area on my large and intelligent mindflesh. IQ? 700. it is nearly one in the morning and I have work in a few hours and also, schoolwork I should be doing, so if I sound a little off in this note it's because my functional personality cortex is polished smoother than a got dam pointy italian shoe instead of its usual dull little orange light that means The Sweetheart is in. are pointy italian shoes smooth? I don't know. 
> 
> I'm very tired.
> 
>  **warnings for:**  
>  -mention of forzen  
> -gman (he's not a bad guy, but just kinda. yeesh. yk?)  
> -josh coping by being Very Funny  
> -continued unreality (background radiation, this time)  
> -bad jokes!  
> -implied/referenced the chuck e cheese debate

Josh wakes up with a crick in his neck, what feels like a rock in his spine, and blue cotton stuck to the side of his face from where he drooled on his dad’s shirt. Ew. Josh pulls himself out of the pile of limbs (that sounds gross. Like, it’s accurate, but it also makes the cuddle pile thing happening on the couch sound like it’s the giant flesh monster at the end of Inside. Ew) and stretches dramatically, his back popping… even more dramatically. Again, _ew,_ Josh’s bones shouldn’t be making sounds like that. He’s twenty-four. Christ.

Twenty-four and also a video game NPC.

The events of last night come crashing back into his mind, and Josh’s fists drop from the air down to his sides. It’s like remembering the events of a dream as something real, and asking Dad how he got the cat’s claw marks out of the armchair only to realize as Dad gives him a confused look that _shit, right, that was a dream; we haven’t had a cat in years._ Except in reverse. _Shit, right, that was a real thing; we’ve been living in a virtual reality my whole life._ And, y’know, causing significantly more existential dread than realizing a big fluffy cat didn’t actually scratch up Dad’s favorite chair. Josh squeezes his bleary eyes shut and focuses on breathing. _“Oh if everything turned out to be a video game I’d find the cheat codes and hack my way into touching lava, haha,”_ yeah, okay, Past-Josh. Big fucking talk from the same guy who got a surprise birthday party thrown for him (as senior in high school, so like, way too old for him to justify it as being a dumb kid) and had a minor breakdown about his friends lying to him. It was deeply bold of him to assume that he wouldn’t have a _major_ breakdown about finding out his life was code on someone’s screen and that he wasn’t even real. He didn’t even get cake, this time! This is bullshit.

Can Josh convince the Science Team to get him a cake?

Josh is going to try and convince the Science Team to get him a cake.

He lets himself smile at the thought of wheedling one of his family members into buying a Sorry We Gave You An Existential Crisis sheet cake, and then scrubs at the grit in his eyes and starts trudging to the bathroom because if he can’t brush his teeth and shower, he can at least steal Bubby’s mouthwash and then rinse his face off in the sink. Actually, he doesn’t know if he trusts Bubby’s mouthwash not to contain an industrial cleaning agent or five. Hm.

…worth the risk. Aside from the important things, like “don’t die” and making wishes when he adjusts his bracelets and a billion other little things like that, Josh’s actual Daily Routine is muddled and subject to change, but at the beginning and end are ‘clean teeth’ because once, when he was six, a dentist complimented him on how well he was taking care of himself and he’s been chasing that high ever since. (Related fun fact: Josh makes jokes when he’s stressed. Maybe that weird brain-wire-cross that made him laugh when he was hurt just morphed instead of vanishing. Maybe it’s just a coping mechanism. Who’s to say. 

Well, statistically speaking, his therapist is to say and usually does so with a look of incredulity, but whatever.)

Bubby’s mouthwash does not have industrial cleaning agents in it. Or, if it does, Josh is immune to them, so it’s fine. Josh finishes scrubbing at his face with the washcloth and looks in the mirror, expecting… he doesn’t know. Expecting for something to be different since he fixed his hair before the family dinner last night? The reflection just shows him the same faint bags under the same mismatched eyes, same acne that he has to grip the sink’s porcelain edge to avoid picking at, same stubble he keeps forgetting to shave. Same face. Same Josh. It’s disappointing, somehow. Maybe he was expecting some sick glowing eyes like Tommy and Coomer and Benrey get, sometimes.

Josh’s reflection blinks with him in shared concern because wait, shit, where _is_ Benrey? They were there when Josh was getting brought in on the ‘the world isn’t real’ thing, but when he came back, they were gone. Josh frowns. He doesn’t think Benrey would have just _left_ because Josh was having a breakdown. They even helped in a very unasked for (and later banned, not like calling Dad a dilf has been banned – where Josh hates it but doesn’t attack Benrey like a rabid animal whenever they say it anyway – but like Please Do Not Do This) way when everybody’s good friend, Fucking Separation Anxiety, popped up and nearly dragged Josh into a panic attack. So. Something’s up with that. Maybe he’s come back and Josh didn’t see him yet?

Josh listens to the house for a second to check for horrible crunching or Sweet Voice, but there’s nothing aside from a brief low, droning sound that’s probably the heating and the faint, pricking feeling in the back of his brain that something’s off. He can’t put his finger on what. (It’s not Benrey-related because when they’re causing problems, there’s nothing subtle about it.) Walking back into the living room, he passes by the dining room and, okay, time to shelve the Benrey concerns for a minute because there’s someone with glowing blue eyes and an immaculate suit standing beside the head of the table. 

_Nope._

No breaking and entering creeps today, thanks, Josh is _not in the mood,_ universe. Coding. Josh isn’t here for it, whatever the cause is. “Ah,” says the creep, “Mister… Freeman. So sorry we couldn’t meet after more, _pleasant,_ discussions, hm? Though, they are undoubtedly… better than the, hm, _incident…_ that led to my first conversation with, your father.” An asshole who’s being cryptic and knows Dad, despite Josh having never met them before in his life. How novel. Josh reaches back in his memory for the possibly-murdered boot boy Tommy mentioned, and comes up with _‘Frozen’_ and then _‘I should call him Olaf’_ and then _‘Olaf sounds kinda like oaf. Oalf’_ and then _‘IT WAS FORZEN’_ and then he shakes his head to clear the thoughts out and takes a closer look at maybe-Olaf, definitely-creep.

Regulation haircut? Check.  
Shifty expression? Check.  
Cop boots? ...no, fancy dress shoes, but the suit isn’t exactly cop get-up either. Also, Tommy just said ‘boot boy’ so who’s to say if Forzen wasn’t like, a high-ranking soldier, or some shit? 

Maybe he’s retired. It _has_ been twenty years.

God, it feels good to have at least some idea what’s going on. Josh tilts his head up (and up and up and up because this asshole is _rudely_ tall) and meets the creep’s eyes defiantly. “Can you talk any fucking slower, Forzen? Because I can break out the fingerspelling.”

Forzen blinks, looking disquieted. Josh does not feel any guilt or shame because there’s a cop/soldier/asshole in his grandpas’ house, who broke in after stealing from Tommy and pulling some Black Mesa bullshit. A little disquiet should do the boot boy good. “I… beg your, pardon?”

(It’s possible that he just doesn’t understand ASL. Josh is going to assume he understands ASL until proven otherwise. This is a Forzen problem.)

“I said,” Josh signs, one letter at a time and watching with glee as Forzen stares incredulously at his hand, “‘can you talk any fucking slower, Forzen?’ Because you sound like a B-Movie villain, and I’m deeply not in the mood for it, so either tell me what you’re here for or don’t speak.” Forzen stares at him, unblinking, eyes lighting the whole room with a slight blue tinge. Josh swishes his socked heel back and forth impatiently on the wood floor.

Forzen, who looks supremely unused to and uncomfortable with being put on the spot, begins, “I am…” but then trails off and just stares at Josh a little more. “Are you, _certain_ that you are, Dr. Freeman’s son and not… the, _antagonist’s…_ offspring? Your demeanor bears a, striking, resemblance to their… interruptions.” Josh scowls at the boot bastard. This sounds like it should constitute another sticky note on his digital board, but Josh doesn’t know what it means or how to parse it into small enough words that it could fit. Like, at all. ‘The antagonist’? Who the hell was the antagonist? The point of video games’ pleasant epilogues is that the antagonist is dead, now, leaving the hero and his family to live on Happily Ever After. Josh supposes it makes sense that he doesn’t know who the bad guy was, in that case, because wouldn’t Dad’s whole role as the protagonist mean that he’d have

killed

them

holy fucking balls.

 _That’s_ why Dad killed Benrey. That’s why Benrey puts so much time and effort into trying to make Dad angry at him. That’s why Josh didn’t ever hear about them, despite the fact that they were clearly in Black Mesa with the Science Team. _Benrey was the antagonist of the game._ The case has been cracked wide open! Thank you, bootboy! 

Wait. 

Bootboy just told him he was like Benrey. Thank you retracted. “Hey, fuck you! I am _way_ more like Dad than like his shitty—” Josh’s brain suggests several words, like ‘boyfriend’ and ‘partner’ and ‘annoying maybe-ex’ but his hands are moving in the letters before he’s entirely figured out how he’s ending that sentence— “stray!” Josh has been indignified many, many times in life, but this? This takes the cake. This takes every single cake Josh has ever even _thought_ about. Wish you didn’t hear how much like your father you are? _Congrats,_ says the universe or the coding or the programmer or god or whoever, _now you’re being compared to the shittiest little man on the planet._ Man? Gamer. Shitttiest little gamer on the planet.

Forzen clears his throat and then goes back to his menacing CEO voice, saying, “I understand you had some… _questions,_ regarding the… nature of this world. I believe I may be able to… provide some, _innnnsight,_ of sorts. A… hm, ‘Q’ ‘N’ ‘A,’ as it were.” His mouth slides up, just a bit, in a smug and assholish smirk. This is bait. Josh recognizes bait when he sees it. (He’s a college student with severe anxiety who grew up near southern California and spent some time as a rebellious teenager _in_ California, of _course,_ he knows when a cop is trying to bait him into something. No, officer, Josh doesn’t know what a marijuana is and has no interest in learning, ‘kay bye!)

So, he does the sensible thing in this situation and makes an effort to get the fuck out of it. “No thanks!” Josh fingerspells cheerfully. Forzen blinks, having clearly expecting Josh’s curiosity to have won out over his common sense. And while (as much as it hurts to admit it) that’s usually a safe bet to make concerning Josh’s choices, he just got some of his biggest questions answered in the worst way possible, and he’s going to get the rest of those answers out of the Science Team _later today,_ so no, officer, Josh doesn’t know what a video game is and has no interest in learning, ‘kay bye! “I don’t talk to cops, and you broke into my grandpas’ fucking house, meaning I am _not_ about to listen to you. Get the hell out before I wake my family up.” Forzen just looks at him with the air of a man who is extremely used to having the upper hand in every conversation ever, and is not sure how to deal with the total lack of control he’s being allowed. Josh raises his eyebrows.

“I. Cannot stress, _enough,_ Mister Freeman, the… _importance_ of—” Josh shakes his head, still cheerful. Forzen falters. “The– world as you have, come to underst—” another head shake. Forzen starts to say something, and Josh just raises his eyebrows even higher in a dare. It’s not one that the bootboy takes, holding his hands up and saying, “You– you’ll. Figure it out. You’ll figure it out.” The low, droning hum that Josh noticed in the bathroom comes back, louder and rising like a wave as the room in front of Josh warps and twists and the blue tint vanishes from the world and so does Forzen. Josh stumbles back in shock, knocking into the wall with a loud thud.

That’s, uh.

That one. Is _new._ That one is new. Okay.

Dr. Coomer starts snoring again, and that’s when Josh realizes that every single member of the Science Team, except Dad, had just gone _silent._ Josh didn’t know they could do that. It seemed physically and mentally impossible. Did– was that– could he have– Josh doesn’t even know where to _start_ theorizing here! What the fuck just happened!

This is a Science Team question. He’s. He’s gonna go wake them up. Yeah.

* * *

Before Josh starts on any of the serious questions, he asks for cake.

 _SORRY ABOUT THE CRISIS!_ says the cake when Tommy gets back with it, piped in bright pink icing. God bless guilt trips; this is a work of high art, and also going on Josh’s instagram. (Again: making jokes as a coping mechanism. After last night, Josh probably has enough anxiously comedic material to quit his degree and go into standup comedy.)

As for the serious questions, it’d be easier to list the questions that Josh _doesn’t_ ask than to list the ones he does. Here is a list of questions Josh doesn’t ask:  
1\. Why didn’t anyone tell him before now?  
2\. Are his memories only real when he’s around the Science Team?  
3\. Is this why Josh is so much like Dad? Recycled code?

He’s not sure there are going to be satisfactory answers to any of these, so he doesn’t bother asking. Having them rattling around in his brain isn’t going to be great, either, but at least this way he won’t have to look at the concrete answers from a million different upsetting angles. Not that any of the answers he gets are concrete, what with all the different members of the Science Team being distracted by the cake and jumping in and explaining things and adding context and backstory and jokes and questions of their own and and and. Every time Josh gets reminded to ask, _hey, where’s Benrey?_ something new and bizarre gets mentioned and all his brainpower is diverted to asking what the _fuck_ a _Black Mesa Golem Ape_ is.

(Darnold, who wasn’t there for most of the adventure and apparently never bothered to ask because he’s not a fan of violence when it’s real, is usually making the same horrified/disgusted expression as Josh. It’s a nice reprieve from the rest of the shit going on. Josh reminds himself to shoot him a ‘thank you for helping me feel marginally more normal’ text later.)

Now that Josh knows about the game, they’ve agreed to actually _tell him_ what happened at Black Mesa (hopefully a less Sanitized For Josh version) which is going– it, uh. Is going. Like, _barely_ going because of how often everyone interrupts each other, but Josh is focusing on the small victories. “And then Gman froze time and – in between cryptic, menacing bullshit – told me to look after the guy with the best aim on the team who had saved my ass on multiple occasions,” Dad says with a wry smile and a hand on Tommy’s shoulder. Tommy, who has a forkful of Crisis Cake in his mouth, looks up with a pleased closed-mouth smile at the praise.

Josh can’t help but snort in amusement before the whole of the sentence catches up with him and he squints with confusion and signs, “Gman? Like, a government person?” Is there _another_ goddamn cop Josh is supposed to know about? For a game that apparently included the military as a hostile force, there are a _lot_ of fucking cops around.

Dad smacks himself in the face. “Shit, I never— uh, Tommy’s dad. Gman.”

“It stands for Gary!” Tommy adds after swallowing his Crisis Cake.

Josh cocks his head and asks, “I thought you were an orphan?”

“Yeah! We– he w– I-I was just about to age out when he– he adopted me!”

Dad lets out a laugh that sounds more like a huff and mutters, “Sure explains the lack of family resemblance, even if it looks like you got the height from him.”

Wait. 

Stopped time for everyone except Dad. Menacing, cryptic speech. Tall as hell. Now, who does that sound like? “Was the time-stop kinda blue?” Josh hazards and Dad blinks at him with surprise, which is all the confirmation Josh needs. _Fuck._ Just when Josh thought he knew what was going on, he gets proven wrong again! Well. You win some, you lose more, but at least he’s getting the answers now. “Yeah. He stopped by this morning, tried to talk to me. I thought he was Forzen and bullied him into leaving because I figured nobody wanted a bootboy in the house.”

(Josh has long since deleted Discord off of his phone, but early sophomore year, Ribs dragged him into a group chat for the other people in her art class. It was mostly stressful because Josh didn’t really know any of them and was out of the loop on most of their inside jokes, but there were enough good moments that it took him months to finally leave the chat. What catalyzed his eventual exit was when they were having a discussion about food crimes, and Josh, like a fucking fool, mentioned that he actually kind of liked LaCroix. There was a moment of absolute silence while a little banner with ‘several people are typing…’ popped up, and then the channel _exploded_ with messages asking him what the hell he was talking about.

This is kind of like that.)

After a second’s pause, accompanied by more than a few confused blinks (and Josh swears to _god_ he sees a little ‘buffering’ wheel spinning in Coomer’s eyes) the room erupts in shouting. “You _what?”_ Bubby starts, the loudest and the first to actually get anything out.

“Holy shit,” Dad laughs, mostly incredulous.

Tommy gasps. He sounds more insulted than Josh has ever heard him, _including the times he was literally insulted,_ when he insists, “M– Dad would _never_ be a bootboy!”

Coomer announces, “The bitch deserved it!” which makes Tommy’s face twist to an almost comical degree of offense, and mostly just makes Josh laugh.

Darnold takes another bite of the Crisis Cake. Holding a hand up in front of his mouth as he speaks, “Mr. Coolatta was nice enough at the Chuck E. Cheese.” For the first time all day, Josh stares at _him_ like he’s grown a second head. Darnold’s been such a source of normalcy up until now; Josh feels slightly betrayed as well as horribly confused.

Darnold’s allyship with him in the NPCs Removed From This Bullshit Club is important, but not nearly important enough for Josh not to demand, _“CHUCK. E FUCKING CHEESE?”_ Because, really, how the _fuck_ does Chuck E. Cheese factor into this? Because they’re all talking about stuff Josh wasn’t there for, that he missed and that he needs for context before they can get into the juicy questions, and Josh has never met Mr. Coolatta or been to a Chuck E. Cheese in his _life._

Tommy straightens up with a smile and explains, “Yeah! We had my thir– thirty-seventh birthday party at– in– at a… Chuck E. Cheese’s! It was fun.” Oh, this _is_ unrelated to Black Mesa. That’s a relief. Josh doesn’t know how the two being related would even _work._ Copyright laws have to exist, right? Like, there’s no way that the game could have– whatever, it isn’t Josh’s problem. He must have been too young to remember going, or maybe Dad saw a big, public get-together with the Science Team and decided to pass. That makes sense. “But, uh, J-Joshua, you said Dad came by this morning? Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

Josh scowls. “A stranger in a CEO-looking suit breaks into my grandpas’ house and starts being smug about ‘the nature of this reality’ and ‘sorry we couldn’t meet after more pleasant discussions’ and I _think_ about Dad losing his fucking hand, and I’m supposed to… what? Say, ‘hi, welcome to the grandpa club, let me sit you down for brunch’? No!” Dad wheezes with laughter, hiding his face in Tommy’s shoulder and leaning into him for support. Josh is glad to see his indignation is so fucking comical. He throws his hands up into the air for emphasis before bringing them back down to add, “Also! About halfway through the bullying, he asked me if I was Benrey’s kid! And I don’t _fucking care_ if they’re dating Dad; under zero _fucking_ circumstances do I want to be considered that _fucking_ bastard’s son!” This, for some reason, makes Bubby and Tommy start hyperventilating with laughter. Coomer gets the buffering sign back in his eyes before erupting with a _‘ha HA.’_ Josh glowers at them all, confused and annoyed. He is in the right here, goddamnit. Darnold shrugs at him, good-natured in his place out of the loop, and Josh sighs before giving him a relieved, “Thank you.” He isn’t even sure what he’s thanking Darnold _for –_ being normal? Not making him feel kinda iced out? Just being the chillest, most human guy here? – but Darnold gives him a little smile like he gets it, and it makes Josh feel a little bit better. Non-Essential NPCs for the win.

He’ll ask the Science Team about where the fuck Benrey went once they’ve stopped laughing their asses off.

* * *

He’ll ask about where the fuck Benrey went once Darnold stops fucking around with his Announcer Voice and Dad stops yelling at everyone for pretending they hadn’t heard it in Black Mesa and the rest of the gang stops yelling back that they _hadn’t!_ Josh doesn’t know whose side he’s on, here, so he pets Sunkist and watches the shouting match and has another slice of Crisis Cake in lieu of popcorn. (He’s pretty sure Sunkist is a smart AI, too, so she can join him and Darnold in the Non-Essential NPC Club. They may not have plot importance, but they have the perfect dog. Put that on a bumper sticker.)

* * *

He’ll ask about where the fuck Benrey went once he isn’t hearing about their boss fight. It’d be too close to home, Josh thinks, to ask about him right now.

* * *

He’ll ask about where the fuck Benrey went once Dad shuts up about Chuck E. Cheese being a _restaurant,_ what the fuck? It’s a goddamn gambling center for kids, and it’s got a restaurant _in it,_ but in what fucking world—

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gman: ah, mr. freeman,  
> josh: get the fuck outta my peepaws' house you villain monologue sounding bitch  
> gman, having violent 'yo you got ps+??' flashbacks:  
> gman: I  
> gman: what?
> 
> 1\. keeping in mind that I have less than zero idea what mod the crew used, R(Reload) is the command listed for a modified timestop mod, so that's why that's the chapter title  
> 2\. josh says "I don't care if benrey is dating dad" while gordon isn't looking at him, so josh doesn't get corrected and gordon has no idea josh thinks they're dating. if gordon Had seen that, it would have led to. many paragraphs of couples counseling that josh would have fought me on the whole way. deus ex touch-as-a-love-language to avoid that shit, thank you tommy for being nearby and huggable.  
> 3\. if benrey had been present, he would have spent the whole scene Physically Vibrating with the effort not to make "the cake is a lie" jokes


	9. questgiver outline = #f6f558

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darnold holds up Josh's keys and waits for Gordon to put his hands up before tossing them over to him. Over the jingling that the metal makes when Gordon catches it, "Your relationship with Benrey is… a _lot_ more complicated than I thought." Gordon laughs, shaky, and just shrugs in acknowledgment. "I think, judging by how much Tommy kept pointing out that they were friends, he might have run off back to our house—"
> 
> Gordon is shaking his head before Darnold can finish the thought. "Look, I haven't gotten mad at anyone like that since Josh's graduation, and– being around them might not be…" _good? Right? Something that's made Gordon feel happy and helped him realize he's been missing his friend?_ Darnold holds out a hand, asking permission to touch, and Gordon nods.
> 
> Darnold squeezes his shoulder. "Dr. Freeman. Sometimes science and previous results can't solve everything. Maybe you need to introduce some new variables and… and just _talk_ to the dang guy." Gordon huffs a laugh.
> 
> He's not sure if he trusts himself not to go back to snapping at them for little things. Not that Benrey should have _said—_ it's just. Complicated.
> 
> Things are so fucking complicated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> last actual chapter!!! after this it's just the epilogue after another (much smaller) timeskip because I'm. incapable of writing epilogues without those, I guess. sweet voice translations in the end notes :')
> 
>  **warnings for:**  
>  -continued unreality  
> -threats of violence  
> -minor body horror (non-graphic description of extra eyes)  
> -genuine emotions :/  
> -joshua-typical benreyphobia  
> -implied/referenced the chuck e. cheese debate  
> -forbidden jungle juice consumption (do NOT try this)  
> -just. heavy introspection. I'm not sure exactly what to call it but Josh Has A Think

Bubby is officially kicking everyone out, and Tommy and Josh are on cleanup duty while Darnold and Dad scrounge around for all of the shit that they’ve set down around the grandpas’ house. Tommy squeezes Josh’s shoulder and, demonstrating a volume control that Josh has always assumed he stole from both of the old men, says, “I think Benrey’s probably hiding back at your apartment.” Josh raises his eyebrows because he’s holding a stack of frosting-covered paper plates, and that seems like the best non-verbal way to express _so?_ Tommy’s face twists, and he explains, “Somebody—” said in a tone that implies Josh is the somebody— “needs to– talk some sense into him, and Mr. Freeman will probably just– just upset him, right now. But if– if those two don’t have a healthy conversation, I’m going to shoot one of them!”

Josh drops his plates and signs, _“Do not shoot my father.”_

Tommy frowns down at the frosting on the floor. “I don’t think the player ever turned off godmode,” he muses, clearly more focused on the mess.

Josh can’t reach Tommy’s face to grab it, and also he needs two hands for Tommy’s name, so he settles for poking him in the chest and then reiterating, “Tommy. _No.”_ Tommy’s frown becomes distinctly pout-like, but he doesn’t press the matter, which Josh is going to take as a good sign. He’s not entirely sure he believes that Tommy would actually shoot his dad, but also, he just spent about two hours hearing about how Tommy would routinely point guns at everyone and was always squeezing the trigger, so! Not taking that fucking chance! “Besides,” Josh adds with a glower, “why am _I_ convincing them to talk to Dad? _You’re_ actually friends with him!” Tommy sets his hands on his hips and nods thoughtfully like Josh has just made an excellent point, but he has a retort ready to go.

“Do you really want– wanna hear Mr. Freeman talk about how he feels about Benrey?” Tommy asks, sounding both genuine and very pleased with himself. Josh grimaces because no, he doesn’t want to hear that; in fact, there are very few things that Josh would like to hear less! Damn Tommy for not having an incredibly stupid rock’s observational skills like the rest of his family.

Josh groans and picks up the plates again. Tommy doesn’t need a signed response to that question – he knows.

Tommy crouches down and starts wiping the buttercream off of the floor with a dishcloth. “I can take him by– by my house, and then Darnold and I can– we’ll distract him! So you can get Benrey to calm down and convince him to have a– to talk to Mr. Freeman.” Josh folds up the plates (they’d all agreed that grocery-store Crisis Cake was best enjoyed off of shitty paper plates) and sticks them into the trash can.

He wipes his hands off on his pants, lowers his phone’s volume, and then types, “If they don’t talk, won’t Benrey come back from being shot? Like, it won’t deal them real damage if they avoid Dad. He respawns.” Tommy looks up from the frosting, eyes glowing yellow, and Josh is reminded that apparently, Tommy was the deadliest member of the Science Team by far. “I’ll convince them to talk,” Josh agrees meekly.

* * *

Josh connects to the living room speaker through the door and says, “I brought some jambalaya.” There’s a weird skittering sound, and then some low Sweet Voice (accompanied by some orange light showing underneath the door) followed by quiet. Quiet, somehow, is worse than the usual loud, horrible sounds that mean Benrey is nearby. “Open up, shithead. Dad’s only gonna be at Tommy’s for half an hour until he gets talked out of being guilty about something stupid that he probably doesn’t even need to be guilty about, so we need to get feelings-talk out of the way before then.” Josh tries to contain his shock when that doesn’t work, and he sighs heavily, thunking his forehead against the door. “Also, I don’t have my keys because he forgot to hand them back to me. Please let me in.” More skittering. He really doesn’t want to know what that’s coming from.

The door opens, and Josh raises his head so he doesn’t stumble forward into the hall. Benrey has seven eyes. Josh is, admittedly, not the best at basic addition, but he’s pretty sure that’s not the right number. “yo, jellybeans?” Benrey asks. If it weren’t for the multiple eyes and the fact that they ran away from dinner and then didn’t come back to be annoying at anyone, Josh probably wouldn’t even know anything was wrong.

“Yeah, fucker, jellybeans. Lemme in.” He cringes when the TTS pronounces it _leem._ “Let me,” he corrects, but it’s not fast enough.

“leem,” Benrey mocks, and Josh knows that the TTS’ pronunciation is a little hit or miss, but really? Is this really necessary? Josh has had to deal with a full breakdown about the world, meeting Tommy’s dad, being frozen in time, and getting compared to _Benrey,_ and even extending an olive branch has to be riddled with difficulty? Fuck _off._ Josh hopes the programmer can read his thoughts, and he hopes those thoughts are formatted in pt.70 comic sans. “yeah, i’ll leet you in. shit baby.” More eyes are opening. That can’t be good. If only it were not-good enough that Benrey would stop being fucking obnoxious.

Josh suppresses the urge to throw the jambalaya into their grinning face. “Thank you so much, fake gamer.” Benrey makes a choking sound that, after a brief moment of panic, Josh interprets as ‘offense.’ Some of the eyes are closing, though? Josh has no fucking clue what the proper protocol here is. What do you do for someone who’s freaking out about being mean to you but stops freaking out when you’re mean back?

 _(Help them find a therapist,_ suggests a tiny and unhelpful voice at the back of Josh’s brain. It’s unhelpful because uh, yeah, no _shit._ )

Josh passes the ham-and-sausage jambalaya over to Benrey once he’s inside, trudging towards the couch. There’s a beat of weird quiet, and then Benrey trails along after him, sitting down on the other end of the sofa and focusing in on their food. Frankly, Josh would be perfectly happy to just play on his phone and socialize by sitting in the same vicinity and ignoring each other and then never talking about this again, but he doesn’t want Tommy to shoot anyone. Josh pats at the couch cushion next to Benrey to get his attention and, once he’s looking at him, Josh signs, “They told me about Black Mesa.”

Benrey nods slowly. “all of it?”

“Most of it. I know the world is… nebulously real, and that you tried to kill everyone.” Benrey winces, and Josh scoffs. “Dude, it’s fine. Tommy’s shot pretty much everyone at least once, Bubby’s given out a good deal of burn scars, and Coomer’s Coomer. I think the only people who _haven’t_ nearly killed everyone are… actually, I think just me. Huh. Yikes. But, yeah, attempted murder is so far under the bridge it’s fucking groundwater.” Josh was really expecting that to come out more eloquently, but Benrey’s looking over at him like they’ve just been shown the sun for the first time, so it must have been good enough.

“i’m sorry for saying you looked shitty,” Benrey blurts out suddenly, and Josh blinks at him. That’s out of left field. And not even in the usual abrupt bullshit way because _this_ is an _apology,_ and Josh didn’t even know Benrey was physically capable of those. They keep surprising him. He doesn’t like it.

After a second of baffled silence, Josh asks, “When did—”

“when you were a fuckin’ uhhh baby. shit baby. but, uh, not actually– not shit. notshit baby. sorry.”

Josh’s brow furrows before he figures out that Benrey’s apologizing for insulting a legitimately shitty-looking baby photo _twenty years ago,_ and he tips his head back laughing. “No, god, don’t– don’t do that, man! Don’t apologize! Now I have to say I’m sorry for calling you a bastard, and I’m not!” Benrey cracks a slight smile, eyes glowing, and Josh is struck for a moment because he’s seen Dad make that same worried, hopeful expression after a big argument. Sans the teeth and glowing eyes, obviously, but– still. It’s so _human,_ and it’s kind of comforting in a weird, almost-familial way. _Familiar._ Not familial; Benrey isn’t family yet– and if Josh gets his way, they never will be! A particularly human smile and an expression like Dad’s doesn’t make them a parent. Or. Part of the family at large, not specifically a– shut up, you didn’t see anything.

Benrey looks back into their bowl. “nah, you uh. brought food. s’the food code, bro, can’t say shit. ’cause of the food.” Josh rolls his eyes, and he’s pretty sure he can leave now and add a footnote of _also talk to Dad or Tommy’s gonna shoot you_ but Benrey reaches out and knocks a fist against his thigh, just a small thing to grab his attention. When Josh looks at them, they’re frowning, and they have too many eyes. They only barely fit on his face. The eyes number somewhere in the twenties, probably, but definitely too many for Josh to subtly count. A lot, is the point. “i’m. when you ragequit, i said you were stupid for not getting the playthrough. said that you um, shoulda played People Simulator but like, fuckin, better, and shit. didn’t… mean it, y’ know? you’re playing it good. or– fuck. idk. _you’re_ good. not clickbait, not just… a notshit baby, or a shit baby, anymore, and you’re not gor– not. feetman. you’ve got the… pro subscription, josh neatman levels unlocked. player 2. yk?”

Josh doesn’t know. It takes a full hour of analysis to understand what the fuck Benrey is talking about under any circumstances, so he closes his eyes and leans back into the couch cushions. It _might_ this is Benrey’s version of ‘you’re a real person, not a copy of your dad or a piece of dumb code’ but it could be anything. He doesn’t want to give them credit where it isn’t due. (That’s bullshit. Josh is good enough at deciphering their nonsense that he knows that’s exactly what they’re saying, and he knows that they mean every single painfully awkward word. It’s just that there have been two too many heart-to-hearts with Benrey on this couch, and Josh doesn’t want to start crying again, so he’s going to shelve all of this for later.) Josh signs, “Yeah. Thanks, Benrey.”

Benrey squints at him. He signs back, “Benrey?” and– shit. Fuck. Fucking shit. He’d been so careful not to show them the name sign, and now he’s gone and fucked the whole thing up.

“Yeah,” Josh explains with a sigh, “Benrey. B-E-N-R-E-Y.” Benrey blinks at him again, and Josh is pretty sure it’s their usual pseudo-confusion and not genuine non-understanding, but just in case, he explains a little more. “Fingerspelling sucks, so that’s shorter. It’s like how ‘soda’ with a ‘T’ is T-O-M-M-Y. Tommy. See?”

Benrey’s eyes get big, and he says, “bro… nicholas names?” They sound more sincerely touched than Josh has ever heard them, which is deeply disconcerting, considering that they’re spouting off their usual word salad.

“…Sure?”

“nice. look:” and then, signed, “j baby.”

Josh snorts and says, “That’s not _anything!_ That means absolutely nothing.”

“baby j.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Josh answers with a laugh, and Benrey grins at him. There are only two eyes left, and Josh smiles. It’s a mix of pride for having calmed the dangerous alien antagonist down and also the pride that comes with making a friend happy. If Josh thinks about that at all, he’s going to need more Crisis Cake, and he’s definitely full for right now, so he adds it to the shelf sitting in the back of his brain. “I’m gonna go call my dormmate,” he says, standing up and stopping in the kitchen to put his own (untouched because he ruined his appetite with cake) jambalaya in the fridge, “don’t eat anything you shouldn’t. Also, I’m leaving the day after tomorrow, and you need to talk to Dad about your feelings and maybe give _him_ a weird, borderline-incomprehensible apology once I’m gone. _Once I’m gone._ I don’t wanna be around for that.”

Benrey scowls, spitting a stream of brown at him. “you don’t wanna hear it. i don’t wanna say it. could just, um. y’ know. not.”

Josh turns over his shoulder to give them a long-suffering look. “As much as I would love for miscommunication to drive you off the couch and far, _far_ away from my father, Tommy threatened to shoot someone if you didn’t get your shit sorted. And he didn’t specify if the someone would be you or Dad, so. Sort your shit, but please, god, wait until I’m thousands of miles away to do it.”

Benrey smacks their lips and then drawls, “wow. joshie home of phobic momence.”

Josh holds up a finger at Benrey, a ‘hang on’ gesture as he digs through his pocket with the other hand, past the lighter and the spare change and the cool rock he picked up last week, and finally coming up with his pocket knife (it’s way too big to be honestly called a pocket knife, but Coomer got it as a gift for him when he was in seventh grade and refused to call it anything else) because it really takes any and all attempts at intimidation up a notch. “Never call me ‘Joshie’ again,” he threatens cheerfully, brandishing the knife. Benrey _cackles_ at that, and Josh doesn’t know whether to be pleased that they’re feeling better or pissed that they think he won’t fucking stab them. The only people who can call him Joshie are Dad, Sadie, and Ribs. Benrey is _firmly_ not on that list.

Whatever. Job done, talk had, Dad’s stray officially threatened with violence and possibly murder. Josh is going to go get Ribs started on a dumb topic so they can just argue about nothing for the next few hours. Or, if she’s not in the mood for arguing, he’ll ask about her new j– no, her new job is video game software, he _cannot_ listen to that right now. Decorating plans are a safe bet. He’ll ask her what needs redecorating once he gets back to their dorm.

* * *

Good news: Ribs is open to arguing about nonsense.

Bad news: Josh is going to strangle his roommate the second he gets back to Harvard. Chuck E. Cheese is not a _fucking restaurant._

* * *

It’s a two-hour trip to the Santa Fe airport, and Josh is driving. Dad is sitting shotgun and, therefore, unfortunately, in charge of the music, but Josh can tell he’s making an effort to play something Josh will like. It’s not a particularly _good_ effort, but it’s not Imagine Dragons, and literally anything is better than that.

It’s just them and Darnold in the car – why Darnold insisted on coming along, Josh has no idea, but he’s not about to break the bond that comes with being in the Non-Essential NPCs Club – partially because they all said the big family goodbye this morning, and partially because airports are a special sort of hell for the Science Team. The _idea_ of airplanes (height plus big, pressurized tubes) makes Bubby deeply anxious, so going to a hub for them was a hard no; Tommy hates the weird detached-from-time feeling where there aren’t any rules, metal detectors start going off if Coomer gets within ten feet of them, and Benrey… and Benrey. End of reason. (Although, Josh vaguely remembers _Darnold_ getting... banned from an airport? Or maybe arrested in one? Look, Josh was like thirteen; he doesn’t fucking remember.) Darnold and Dad are arguing about _something_ across the seats, but god knows what because Josh hears the phrase ‘forbidden jungle juice’ and decides that plausible deniability is probably something he’ll want on his side.

It’s nice. Driving’s always been something that clears Josh’s head, and it’s nice to have two hours to wind down, seventy miles an hour down long, freezing roads in a warm car.

* * *

If Josh were more into philosophy, he could probably write a million papers on this and get rich, be a tenured professor, or something like that. As it is, he leans his head against the plane’s window (he always gets window seats flying out! It varies which seat he gets coming back, though) and sighs. Josh and his family are one of the most advanced collections of Artificial Intelligence, possibly ever. And he just watched his pseudo-uncle take out a glass, use it to reach into the Forbidden Liquids Collection Bin and take some, and then chug the whole glass while airport security looked on in horror and Dad hid his face in his hands. It is… remarkably on brand, honestly. Not to mention surprising that Josh didn’t work out the meaning of ‘forbidden jungle juice.’ He taps his head on the glass a couple more times, the window cool against his skin.

Joshua C. Freeman has so many questions. He has many answers, but those only ever mean more questions because he’s never happy with the walls in front of him. Dad had commented that he expected Josh’s “why” phase to end when he was nine, but at this rate, it’ll be going forever, and Josh laughs along, but Dad’s right. Josh always wants to know _why._

And he can’t, this time. This isn’t something Josh can get a full story from.

The plane takes off, as planes are wont to do, and rattles and roars into the sky. Josh closes the window, just in case they fall out of the world. He doesn’t want to see. Doesn’t want to know.

Josh frowns.

He’s… he’s tired of feeling like the world doesn’t matter. He’s been here before – not exactly, but _you_ try getting told how much like your graduated-MIT-at-twenty-six-with-a-doctorate-and-a-secret-agent-science-job dad you are all the time and not stressing about falling short of expectations or feeling like a failure – and it fucking sucks. Talking to people helps, (reminders that he’s not alone, that people love him, and that sure, maybe his family won’t matter in a thousand years, but they matters to him right this second) but his phone’s on airplane mode, so he can’t reach any of his family or friends.

But. Just talking helps.

Josh has to shuffle a bit to pull his bag out from under his seat and then get his laptop out from its sleeve, but sure enough, his Cleverbot (a wifi-less program) is still there. (An AI made an AI and is now talking to it instead of his fellow AI because he wants human connection. Remember when Josh’s biggest concern was a not-cop stealing his jambalaya? Good times. Oh, three weeks ago, how Josh misses it.)

>Cleverbot?  
**BOTTYMCBOTTERSONTBD reporting for duty!**

Josh cringes. He really needs to find a name for it, so he never has to look at that placeholder ever again.

>hello! do you have like. Opinions on soda?  
**You haven’t spoken to me about soda, so not really. Why?**  
>just trying to find something to say, I guess.  
**May I suggest “Lexicon”? It has three syllables!**

Josh stifles a laugh at that because you know what? It sure does, Cleverbot. Good job.

The program isn’t very good at masquerading as a person, which kind of nullifies the ‘talk to a person’ plan, but making something with his hands is pretty good against existential shittiness, too; Josh is more than happy to pour time into adjusting the code to make it more adaptive to input, and then fixing his bugs, and then fixing the bugs that came from the last bug fix. It takes him about three of the six hours on the plane until he’s got all of the response times and visual input where he wants them to be, and it’s a good feeling. He _made_ this. With his hands and his brain and his code.

> it’s pretty cool being a bot, right?  
**I don’t have a lot to compare it to, but it’s not bad.**  
>thanks for the outstanding vote of confidence  
**No problem!**

By the time Josh touches down in Boston, the Cleverbot has an entirely new system for adapting to the text it’s fed, an extra seventy lines of mangled Python that should in no means constitute a functioning bot but that the entire program would collapse without, and the same shitty placeholder for a file name. _Josh,_ meanwhile, has a caffeine headache (the plane had complimentary coffee, and Josh’s self-restraint isn’t fantastic) and a feeling of contented spite. None of this is real? Well, Josh just taught a computer program how to rickroll someone, and that feels pretty fucking tangible, so take that, existential dread.

Josh is going to schedule an appointment with his therapist for Saturday, obviously, but also? He’s dealt with worse mental health days about less substantial things before. Who cares if he’s recycled code, or if he’s not always real, or if the word is fabricated? He’s Joshua Camille Motherfucking Freeman, Mario Kart player extraordinaire, the youngest member of the Science Team, and his dad fought through aliens and glitches and a full month’s worth of Black Mesa bullshit just for an epilogue with him. He can handle some nihilism.

He’s going to take a nap before making any other big speeches, though. He’s not sure his heart should be beating this fast.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> accompanied by some orange light showing underneath the door: _white to orange like a koi means 'you fucked up, benny boy'_  
>  spitting a stream of brown at him: _caramel means go to hell_
> 
> so, for context (because josh avoids this soap opera as much as he can and benrey is avoiding making josh upset bc that seems to make gordon Very Mad at him, meaning I can't write this without deviating from josh's pov and I,, don't wanna >:( so a post-script it is) gordon comes home and is Very Stiff around benrey, but less in a "I don't like you being here" way and in more of a "oh god what am I supposed to do with all of this tension" way. like, a little of the former, but mostly the latter. after josh leaves back to massachusetts (did you know harvard and MIT are both in massachusetts?? top 10 facts I learned while writing this fic) benrey is like. okay. i'm sorry for calling your son a baby loser who sucked at people simulator. he's not a baby, a loser, and he's better at person than i am.
> 
> and gordon is like, no, man, I'm sorry for getting so mad at you. I know you didn't mean it— _pause to give benrey a suspicious look like You Didn't Mean It, Right which benrey shakes his head at like Nah Bro Course Not—_ and I was just really worried, and. It was you, and I guess it just reminded me of Black Mesa, and... yeah. Sorry.
> 
> and benrey's like, s'cool. you care him. it was uhh unepic of me to grief like that. and gordon, cautiously letting himself be amused, goes God can you spend maybe A Minute talking like a human person? which gets him a bro ew. cringe. and gordon rolls his eyes and does a gay little sigh-laugh and they talk a little more and It's Okay. and like, after a couple of very awkward but earnest weeks of this type of shit, they're Actually Friends and benrey slowly but surely stops thinking like Be Funny And/Or Rude = Gordon Angry = Get Attention = Good  
> because it turns into Be Jokingly Rude And/Or Be Funny = Gordon Happy = Good  
> and then into Be Jokingly Rude And/Or Be Funny = Science Team Laughing = Made Friends Happy = Good  
> which is pretty good for them and good for everyone else.
> 
> also, at some point, they get ahold of josh's contact information and use it almost exclusively to send him deepfried images that aren't even memes and definitely aren't funny, they're just awful. this probably is fine.


	10. os.path.basename(_benny_)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gordon wakes up with a sharp, pained inhale through gritted teeth, his fists– his _fist_ clenched tight against his chest. The wall in front of him is dark, but he knows Josh's little orange nightlight glows away in the corner, so he turns over to try and see its light– "cringe subconchis?" Benrey mumbles sleepily, "need me to call up your shitbaby? late night chats for the feetmen?" Gordon exhales and pulls them closer, burying his face in their collarbone. On cue, there's the little burble of glowing pink and blue Sweet Voice; Benrey asked him not to get a translation for that, so he just enjoys how pretty it looks.
> 
> "Nah," he says, wincing when his voice shakes, "don't wanna wake him. And don't– Joshie's getting his masters next week, don't call him a shit baby." Benrey hums another bright note, but doesn't say anything else. They're only mean to Josh when he's around to be mean back, now, thank god. Gordon's focusing on the feeling of being held so the phantom feeling of the ambush can't sink in when something clicks in his tired mind: he’s _being held._ He murmurs, "Benrey? Are you… did you shapeshift to be bigger than me?"
> 
> A beat. "huh?" Gordon laughs softly and doesn't call him out on it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> last chapter folks!! this is Just Fluff and also picks up months after the last chapter so if there are any weird rushed-looking things: yeah :') 
> 
> also, there's a lore dump in the end notes because a lot of things had to go unnoticed/unmentioned when they didn't fit into the narrative, so have fun with that
> 
> warnings for:  
> -josh-typical homophobia  
> -some more benrey catgirl propaganda  
> -hyperpop  
> -random OC front and fucking center  
> -little a arson. as a treat.  
> -an author's very flawed understanding of how coding works  
> -possibly fraudulent depictions of harvard. does it offer computer sciences as a major?? _is_ computer science a major??? are valedictorian speeches a thing????? I'm passing high school by the skin of my teeth and haven't so much as glanced at my gpa for 4 years running, I've got no idea

It turns out, getting Ribs to wear a tux requires listening to her god-awful playlist, on blast, for the preceding three weeks. Josh loves her, he does, but she _has been leaving her hearing aids out_ for this. Meaning she doesn’t like hearing this shit either. Ribs is going to kill him, and Josh won’t ever get the chance to wear his party dress because he’ll be dead, and the Science Team has forbidden him from testing if he can respawn like them, so he’s not sure if he’ll come back.

(The ‘don’t die to test if you come back from the dead’ was mostly from Dad, but Tommy was also pretty adamant, which was sweet.)

Two days before graduation, one day before the Science Team teleports (Josh has gotten conflicting answers about who exactly is doing that, so he’s decided to stop asking) up to see him and have a party, Josh calls his dad. The second Skype connects, Josh asks, “Did you know that bubblegum hyperpop exists?”

Dad – who has not listened to anything other than Linkin Park’s _In The End_ since… uh, since he was born, probably, and wouldn’t know a different music genre if it bit him on the nose – blinks at him. “What?” And then, after a second of listening to the horrible sounds happening, “What the fuck is that?”

“I’m going to follow in your footsteps and murder my best friend,” Josh signs instead of answering.

Dad’s eyebrows knit together in concern and confusion, and he argues, “He wasn’t my—” a horrible cacophony of glitching heavy-metal screaming plays before going back into the actual ‘song’— _“Josh?”_

Josh groans and scrubs at his face. “Ribs and I are dressing up for the post-graduation lunch, and this is how I’m bribing her into wearing a suit. She’s been blasting this shit for the past three weeks, and I’m about to snap.” Dad raises his eyebrows.

“Isn’t Ribs hard of hearing?”

_“And she takes out her hearing aids, so I have to suffer alone.”_

Dad snorts. Asshole. “Thank you for your sacrifice, Joshie,” he says through a grin, and Josh flips him off. That makes Dad break into a full-on laugh because, again, he’s an asshole. Josh squints at his screen and realizes that one, Dad’s using Skype on his phone and, two, he’s sitting on a couch devoid of the usual pillows and blankets that appeared after the Science Team convinced Benrey to start sleeping.

Josh cocks his head and asks, “Did Benrey finally move out?” It’s not a sincere question – Benrey’s a permanent resident of the apartment, and they’ve grown on Josh (like a mold) to the point where his and Benrey’s hatred is more of a running joke than anything genuine.

However.

The day he admits that he doesn’t hate their guts is the day he dies. Or the day Dad and Benrey get married, and Josh has to give a polite speech. (Or both. Giving a polite speech at Dad and Benrey’s wedding would definitely kill Josh.). Dad looks confused for a second before the question must register, and he clears his throat awkwardly, looking away from the screen.

Not a great sign.

Josh’s suspicions of not liking whatever his dad’s about to say are confirmed when Dad says, “No, uh. It’s. You know how, like, when you were a kid, my nightmares weren’t as bad when you’d share my bed?” Josh _does_ know. He spent seven years doing that because whenever they’d go on vacations or travel for Dad’s important collegiate speeches, Josh would insist on sharing the hotel bed with him. He grew out of it (after he’d finally gotten _Dad won’t vanish in the middle of the night and leave me alone again_ into his head) but he never really stopped waking Dad up from nightmares whenever they happened. Dad still calls him late at night, sometimes, and Josh is usually up doing something or other, so they talk and wind down. Josh calls him too, late at night, usually for help with physics or just as proof that they’re both okay, both still there. It helps.

And now, _Benrey_ is helping, too. It’s always good when somebody gets another line added to their safety net, but Josh still wrinkles his nose. He doesn’t know the details of The Feelings Talk™, and it’s been four-ish months since it happened, so even if he wanted details, it’d be weird to ask for them after so much time has passed. He _does_ know that shortly after, Benrey got a therapist, and they both presumably got like, couple’s counseling, or something. Josh is glad that they talked their shit out. Talking their shit out led to Benrey officially moving into the apartment and butting their ugly mug into Skype calls and, apparently, sleeping in Dad’s bed, but he figures its like hangovers. Even if what’s happening now is kind of annoying, it’s important that it happens, and the things that got him here were worth it. “They help with the nightmares?” Josh asks, and Dad nods a little too enthusiastically. He must be relieved that Josh hasn’t started swearing.

“Yeah,” he says with a smile, “and he says I help with his, so. Y’know. Mutually– uh, mutually beneficial, or something!”

Josh snorts. “Dad, you don’t have to break out the symbiotic relationship words to explain why you’re sharing a bed with your stray. It’s fine. I’m glad he helps.”

Dad leans back against the couch, readjusting his grip on the phone so that a white thumb obscures the camera for a second. “They’re not a stray cat,” he insists. It isn’t much of an argument at this point, just a comfortable routine to fit into. Josh still doesn’t know what the right term is (and asking means giving his stamp of approval, which– look, it’s been four months and Benrey’s annoying but good for Dad, so Josh _does_ give his stamp of approval, but no one else needs to know that) so he’s just been calling them Dad’s stray since February. Dad has yet to correct him, except to reiterate that despite Benrey’s habit of smacking shit he doesn’t understand, leaving claw marks in things, and screaming at four in the morning for no discernible reason, _he is not a stray cat._ (Josh thinks the father doth protest too much.)

Josh shrugs. “I’m holding out hope that the apartment isn’t a forever home. You could probably still pawn him off to the grandpas.” Dad lets out a deep sigh, and the thumb moves to show him rubbing long-sufferingly at the bridge of his nose. Josh beams. Ribs’ speakers announce, _hey you little piss baby,_ and Dad’s eyes go wide as he starts scrambling offscreen. At his pockets? “Dad?” Josh asks, but Dad isn’t looking at the screen and doesn’t see him.

“YO,” shouts Benrey from somewhere out of frame, and Dad slumps, weakly holding up a pair of tangled earbuds in defeat. Josh has no idea what is happening here. “is that– bro, i love noise, watch this—” the distant sound of rapid-fire Sweet Voice.

Josh squints. “What?”

Another long-suffering sigh. Dad explains wearily, “Someone in his chat told him to listen to 100 gecs, and he did.” Oh, well, that clears nothing up. Thanks for the help. Josh squints harder, and Dad must recognize that he needs to back up his explanation further because he makes a sputtery, tired noise, and then scrubs at his face when there’s another burst of Sweet Voice from what sounds like the hallway. “They do streams on that… Twitch? Is it Twitch?” Josh, vaguely horrified at the idea of Dad’s stray doing streams on Twitch, nods. Oh, god, do they have fans? Do people actually watch him? What kind of shit is he even _streaming?_ This is going to keep Josh up at night. “He said that—” doing air quotes with his free hand— “‘chat was hyping 100 gecs’ and now he just. Plays that music. I can’t give him the aux cord when we’re grocery shopping, or I might crash the car.” Benrey runs into frame, dropping like a sack of potatoes over the back of the couch, half on top of Dad.

Josh gives him a half-hearted wave, and Benrey smacks his lips. “love to hear sounds,” they add helpfully.

(Josh is violently reminded of sneaking into a frat party with Ribs, who immediately dropped her hearing aids into Josh’s open palm and loudly announced, “I sure do love noises!”

Oh, god, Benrey and Ribs are going to get on like a house on fire. Josh is going to have to fake his death and move to Romania; getting a masters is going to get delayed for another six years because he’ll need to start all over from the beginning and also learn to speak Romanian. And Romanian Sign Language. Does Romania have a sign language? Fuck.)

* * *

Rebecca “Ribs” Fuentes, the valedictorian of Harvard’s graduating class, drops not one, not two, but _seven_ f-bombs during the speech to her peers. She turned her hearing aids as low as they can be without the light turning off, so the shocked and aggravated sounds of the professors won’t reach her.

Josh has never loved anyone more.

Darnold, Bubby, and Benrey were sent to get the restaurant reservations set up ahead of time because the B-Team couldn’t be trusted not to spawn several birds into the stage, or something like that, and nobody else could be trusted to chaperone them without getting roped into the bullshit, so it’s just Tommy, Coomer, and Dad that Josh runs toward full-tilt when they’re all allowed to meet up with their families. Dad wraps him up in a massive bear hug, and Josh laughs and hugs him back. Ribs waits a second before politely tapping Dad’s shoulder and holding out her arms in a request for a hug, and it’s nice to see that the few meetings and fond stories have gotten Dad to the point where he readily scoops her up as well. It’s less nice being crushed against Ribs, but Josh’ll live.

“Now, Rebecca,” Dr. Coomer says with a frown, “you just used many ‘Bad Words’ and ‘Naughty Language!’ What do you have to say for yourself?”

“Sorry,” Ribs says, extricating herself from the hug, and then she takes her hearing aids out entirely. “What was that again? Couldn’t hear you.” Coomer laughs good-naturedly and claps her on the shoulder (she winces, and Josh feels a little better with the confirmation that yes, Coomer’s affection _does_ hurt a little bit, he’s not just a wimp) before repeating himself now that she can read his lips. Ribs – who has either put together Josh’s stories enough to figure out that Coomer is one-hundred percent bullshittting her or just has no shame – grins at him and says, “I’d do it again. Joshie, hold these?” She holds the hearing aids out. Josh raises his eyebrows.

“I’m in a dress under this; don’t you have _pockets?”_

Ribs stays exactly how she is, unmoving except to give him a look like he’s stupid. “Of course, I have pockets.” A beat. “Please?” Josh sighs but holds out his hands for her to drop the hearing aids into. She does so, pecks him on the cheek, and then trills, “Thank you, love you! I’m gonna go get dressed in the terrible monkey suit that I hate, bye!” For someone who had to be extensively bribed into dressing up, she sure does hop to it when it means inconveniencing Josh.

“Don’t die,” Josh signs to her back, for all the good it does.

Dad makes a slightly strangled sound of amusement, and Josh cocks his head up at him. What’s funny about Ribs being her usual self? “Wow,” says Tommy, “that– R-Rebecca and Benrey are as similar as a tortoiseshell and a calico!” Ah. Right. The fact that Benrey’s done the same fucking thing to Dad, except with his helmet instead of hearing aids – Dad even spent fifteen minutes complaining about it the last time they called, and it just slipped his mind. (Not for any nefarious reality-fuckery reason, just because his memory’s a bit shit.)

Josh, for probably the seven thousandth time, wishes the apple had fallen a little farther from the tree because at this point? It’s just _ridiculous._ Josh knows that the epilogue’s probability is a little fucky! That doesn’t change the fact that the odds of both Freemans being roommates with obnoxious gamers who subject everyone around them to loud, awful music must be astronomical! Granted, Josh and Ribs aren’t dating, but still. He tucks the aids into the little pocket formed by taping in a headband so the cap would stay on his head and then puts the cap back on. “Don’t insult Ribs when she isn’t around to defend herself.” Tommy’s mouth quirks up like it always does when he’s trying not to smile at Josh being mean to his extended family; Josh feels accomplished.

Coomer stretches his arms around everyone’s shoulders and says, “Now, gentlemen, we mustn’t be late to our celebratory reservations! At this rate, we’ll reach—”

“No,” Dad interrupts, and Josh laughs because he _knows_ that Coomer’s estimate would be horribly incorrect, “no, no. No. Josh, you wanna go get ready?” Josh beams at him, and Dad pulls him into another hug before he can give an actual answer. “I’m so proud of you, kid,” he says into the tassel of Josh’s cap, and Josh squeezes him back.

* * *

Lunch.

Uh.

It happens.

It’s a miracle nobody dies, and even more of a miracle that they don’t get kicked out.

Ribs and Benrey do, in fact, get on like a house on fire. Worse, Ribs lights the candle sitting at the center of the table, which is enough plausible deniability for Bubby to start _setting other shit on fire._ Which leads to Ribs setting even _more_ stuff (like the grandpas’ and Benrey’s clothes) alight, just for funsies. Josh knows that Dad was starting to go gray even before Black Mesa – Josh knows this because he got _that_ coding instead of the absurd height coding and is slowly gaining some gray himself, despite being _barely twenty-five,_ which is _bullshit_ – but the Science Teams antics probably led to most of the gray that he had now. Josh can sympathize.

Does that stop him from laughing his ass off while Dad frantically bats out a flaming menu and snaps at a mostly-innocent Bubby while trying not to draw a waiter’s attention to the several small fires that Ribs has surreptitiously lit? Of course not. Josh recognizes comedy when he sees it.

* * *

“Dude,” Ribs laughs that night as they sit on the uncomfortable futon in their stripped dorm room, “were you really worried I wouldn’t like them?” Josh makes a face at her, and she raises her eyebrows expectantly.

When it’s clear she’s not going to let him go with just a wrinkle-nosed glower, he finally signs, “They don’t have the best track record.” (Josh thinks back to his sixth birthday party. Josh immediately stops thinking back to his sixth birthday party because as fun as it was, it was also profoundly mortifying and unsafe for children; that shit marked him as a pariah until high school.) Ribs rolls her eyes, fingers still moving across Josh’s laptop keyboard with _alarming_ speed. “How is it?” Josh signs after a second, repeating himself when she blinks up from the screen with a confused expression.

Ribs kicks him lightly in the stomach. “Stop freaking out. Your bot’s good.”

“But how _is_ it? Would you know it wasn’t a person if you—” she kicks him again, harder— “hey, fuck you!”

Ribs gives him an exasperated look, lit from under the chin by the dark blue light of the Cleverbot’s text. “Joshie,” she says, 90% tired and 10% consoling, which is a good measure of her voice whenever they talk about Josh’s Cleverbot, “you’ve run this thing through a billion tests. If you gave it a personality chip, it would legally classify as a person.” Josh scrubs at his face to suppress the strangled, slightly hysterical giggle that the joke almost gets out of him. An AI making a legal person out of a computer. God, the recursion would probably make the hard drive his whole life is stored on combust. Ribs must notice him thinking a little too hard because she nudges him in the stomach with her foot again, though it’s a lot gentler this time. “Seriously. It’s fantastic. Literally all it needs is a name, and then you can release it to the world.” Josh brings his hands up. “You still can’t name it after me.” Josh drops his hands back down before pushing himself into a half-sitting position and reaching out for the laptop.

Ribs hits enter and then passes it over with a smile like she expects a halo to start glowing above her head to cement her innocence. Josh is willing to bet every last cent in his bank account that she’s just taught it more terrible slang. Sure enough, there’s more blue text scrolling out as Josh watches. **Uhh, not me having no clue what “pog” is.** is the final product, and Josh glares up at her. “You’ve been corrupting it,” he accuses, and Ribs’ angelic smile only gets wider. Josh regrets ever asking her to help him teach the bot how to act like a human.

>It’s an expression of, like… something really cool/unbelievable just happened.  
**Ohhh, I see. Pog of you to explain. (?)**  
>(nice job!) this is Josh, by the way.  
**Josh! How’re things and stuff?**  
>good! just trying to think of a name for you.  
**Names are hard.**  
>you’re telling me.  
**Hell yeah I am.**

Josh smiles a little at his creation. It doesn’t have any self-awareness, the learning mechanic is complicated but not very advanced, and its robotic nature is an integral part of what it knows. It’s in the bot’s housekeeping spiel and everything: **Hello, I’m a Cleverbot! My name is BOTTYMCBOTTERSONTBD; I mimic human conversation and learn new words and sentence structures the more you talk to me. Wanna help me learn?**

It isn’t a person, not the way he’s a person or any of his family are people, but it’s… it’s real. As real as anything can be, at least. It makes him happy and frustrated and sad and amazed by turn and, on one _very_ memorable Tuesday, all four at once. He’s glad it exists, no matter how many indecipherable things it says, and no matter how many unfortunate terms his family teaches it, because it exists to make anyone who needs it feel a little less lonely. It usually does that by making them feel a little more confused, but—

huh.

Josh knows what to name it.

He waves a hand to catch Ribs’ attention, and she looks up at him. “What do you think about ‘Benny’?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> before Lore Time: PLEASE please please, if you liked the What Is A Person quandaries and post-game josh POV, check out dombinic's [Play Again? [Y/N]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25318771) it is _so_ fucking good. I don't think I'd go so far as to say it _inspired_ this fic, but it definitely gave me the idea to write from an older josh's perspective, and it just. It's SO GOOD it's so good, please go read it I love it dearly.
> 
> ALRIGHT. LORE TIME. 
> 
> in this au, instead of the movie theater, gman used his Worrying Amount Of Power to make a perfect(ish) world for his son (and like... his son's friends, too, or whatever) to live in! hence why josh has better luck at home: he's around the people this world was Made Perfect For
> 
> josh took the The World Is A Video Game news the best out of absolutely everyone. tommy & gman always knew, so they don't count. benrey also always knew, except he pulled a But Daddy, I Love Him! and joined up with the science team and then had to be the villain anyway. we all know about coomer. bubby got launched into the skybox on the rocket and miraculously kept xirself together long enough to betray gordon before getting locked in xir tube and having a fucking breakdown. darnold got told during the epilogue and was like "okay :)" and everyone was like "wow, he's taking this so much better than—" and then he poisoned them. good for him. they came back and he Talked It Through but I think darnold deserves to do a little bit of murder. as a treat. also his Announcer Voice was the original npc and he was a glitchy offshoot meaning that he didn't know the Press All Buttons To Activate Devil Gun Mode! was happening, but once he was made aware of Being Code, he found the tutorial dialogue commands and. >:3
> 
> gordon and benrey are still not actually dating, josh can just see that they're both heads over heels and thinks that his dad is functional enough to both know and act on this.
> 
> josh and gordon have a Running Gag of dunking on each other's schools. from a friend's dms:  
>  _josh, home for spring break: I got you a present!_  
>  _gordon: c'mon, joshie, you didn't need to—_  
>  _gordon: pulls out the harvard sweatpants_  
>  _josh: :)_  
>  _gordon: I changed my mind actually, find a hotel room, I dont want you here,_
> 
> ribs doesn't really Like hearing everything so josh holds her hearing aids for her A Lot, if she wears them out in public at all. also she watches benrey's streams and it takes her a full month after meeting them in person before she Makes The Connection™ and bursts into josh's room and yells I'M SUBSCRIBED TO YOUR STEPDAD BECAUSE ALL OF THEIR VODS HAVE CAPTIONS and josh goes my what? oh, benrey, he's not my st— YOU WHAT.
> 
> the songs playing during josh & gordon's call were six impala’s Toy Car and 100 gecs’ money machine. and on the subject of music: josh’s Vibes are encapsulated so much by the song Ouch! by Seth78 so give that a listen because it's what I had on loop while writing so much of this fic lmao
> 
> benrey gets Visibly Emotional when he learns josh named the Cleverbot after him. josh says "because it's annoying as hell, stop being touched, I'm being mean to you." but he's also hugging them, so the bullying is kind of obviously just to save face.
> 
> about six months after josh gets his masters, gordon calls him like "okay, I know you don't really get along with benrey, but I think. if you're okay with it. I think I'd like to try having a relationship with him." and josh is like "...I Do Not Know How To Tell You That You've Been Dating Since December"
> 
> and this is copied from something I sent my friend when I realized I wouldn’t be able to fit it into the chapter:  
> benrey, over skype: i'm so sorry  
> josh: ????????  
> benrey: your dad fucking proposed and now everyone's faking papers for me so i can legally get married and i'm gonna be your step parent im so fucking sorry—  
> josh: I thought somebody DIED, oh my god, shut the fuck up, you've been around for years; I don't give a shit. you're already family no matter what I want and also I love you, bastard.  
> benrey:  
> josh:  
> josh: are y. are you crying.  
> benrey, crying: NO.  
> josh: I'm never ever calling you 'dad'  
> benrey: GOOD.  
> benrey: [hangs up]  
> josh:  
> josh, texting gordon: hey so your fiancé just skyped me to apologize for committing identity fraud. this is not how I should have found out they were your fiancé.
> 
> so That's The Fic!! thank you all so much for reading, it means the world to me! my tumblr ([@localdisasterisk](https://localdisasterisk.tumblr.com/)) has some hlvrai stuff and moodboards for my fics so please swing by, leave a kudos, leave a comment, just lurk and feel happy about the words, do whatever you want - you're the best and I'm glad you got this far. bye all!


End file.
